University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Slumps Happen
February 5, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
In the three-point era of Carolina basketball, there may have been no smoother jump shooter than Hubert Davis. He would elevate his lanky frame, fire the ball towards the basket, watch it rip through the net, and then wait for the Smith Center crowd to chant, “Huuuuuuuu!”
Davis is tied for the single-game UNC record for most three-pointers in a game (eight), has the second-best three-point shooting season in Tar Heel history (48.9% as a junior) and holds the school record for career three-point shooting (43.5%). So you might think he's unfamiliar with Carolina's current shooting struggles, in which the five primary UNC three-point shooters are hitting just 25.1% from the three-point line over the last dozen games.
You'd think wrong.
“I've told them I had slumps like that all throughout my career when I was playing,” Davis told Jones Angell on Tuesday night on the weekly radio show.
That's because Davis is a shooter. And in order to be a shooter, you have to endure slumps. During that same junior season, Davis went through a 5-for-18 streak from the three-point line. Like every other slump from a good shooter, it didn't last: he hit 13-of-23 three-pointers during Carolina's run to the Final Four.
Remember when Wayne Ellington was the Most Outstanding Player at the 2009 Final Four? Of course you do; he hit eight of ten three-pointers in Detroit on the way to Carolina's national championship.
But Ellington went through a five-for-20 span from the three-point line in January that eventually turned into a 9-for-32 dry spell over eight games. Speculation was that Ellington's outside touch had deserted him, and it only increased when he went scoreless in the first half of a home game against Miami.
And then, in the second half, Ellington missed, got his own rebound, and scored his first basket of the day. That ignited one of the best shooting displays in Tar Heel history, as Ellington connected on seven three-pointers in the half, a school record. He had made eight three-pointers in the previous six games combined. In nine and a half minutes of second half action against Miami, he made seven.
Why? Ellington had no idea.
“It was good to have a game where I could build some confidence and get back in a groove,” he said after the game. “I was going to continue to take them. I have faith in the way I shoot the ball. Tonight just showed that if you stick with it, it can happen for you. Coach told me to keep shooting.”
Does any of that sound familiar? It should, because it's essentially paraphrased Marcus Paige quotes from the past couple of weeks. There are really two remarkable things about the current Carolina cold shooting snap. They are:
1. Not that Paige is enduring a slump, but that he really hasn't gone through anything like this in his Carolina career before. Virtually every other prolific Tar Heel shooter you can name has had a stretch just like this.
2. That all his other teammates hit the doldrums at the exact same time. If, say, Justin Jackson was hitting at a normal rate right now, the situation would be less noticeable. But everyone in argyle who has a jump shot has caught the shooting bug.
Paige (or Jackson) probably isn't going to break out by making seven three-pointers in one half. But the shooting stroke doesn't have to return in such a pronounced way. In 1993, Donald Williams finished his sophomore season by swishing 10-of-14 three-pointers in two games at the Final Four. That's virtually all that is remembered about his year, and that's why his jersey hangs in the Smith Center rafters.
No one remembers that in January and February of that same year—approximately eight weeks before he climbed a ladder in New Orleans and helped cut down the nets—Williams went through a dreadful 8-for-38 stretch on three-pointers.
There's only one verified cure for a cold spell: keep shooting. And Davis, who has been through it himself, had a simple prescription for all the Tar Heel shooters:
“Try to get to the free throw line,” he said. “Try to drive the ball to the basket. The only thing you want to see is you want to see the ball go through the hoop.”
