Lucas: A Night For Appreciation

By Adam Lucas

On a night that is usually about volume and glitz, the most telling moment may have been complete silence.

That was Hubert Davis' reaction after he was introduced to the crowd and took the microphone at center court of the Dean E. Smith Center. The standing ovation was both loud and heartfelt. And Davis' reaction was equally emotional, as he took several seconds to compose himself while the crowd chanted, "Hu-bert, Hu-bert, Hu-bert."

"I was able to see my first Carolina game in person here in Chapel Hill when I was five years old," he began. It's amazing when you really think about it, that the kid who once told his father he dreamed of being a Tar Heel is now the head coach, and the crowd is chanting his name. It might take a game or two before we start thinking of him as Coach Davis, the same way we thought of Coach Smith or Coach Williams. Even Friday night, it was jarring to see Williams in a first row corner seat, looking every bit the average fan, albeit one who closely perused a stat sheet after every quarter of the scrimmage and who exchanged a hug and close conversation with Caleb Love as the game wound down. The freshmen who arrived at Carolina this fall were largely born in 2003, which means many of them have never been alive for a Tar Heel team without Williams on the sideline.

The new coach is...new. And right now he is still Hu-bert, Hu-bert, Hu-bert. But if he keeps talking the way he did in that center jump circle, it won't be long before he carries every bit the gravitas of his predecessors. What you saw from him on the microphone is very similar to what he's told his players at every opportunity since he was hired.

"Every day I have been trying to communicate to these players that being a part of this program automatically drops you to your knees," he said. "And it drops you to your knees because you are filled with thankfulness, humbleness and appreciation at the opportunity to be a part of this program and university. If you allow yourself to be filled with thankfulness, appreciation and humbleness, you're exactly where you need to be. You're in the perfect spot—each one of you guys—to do something that you'd never hoped or dreamed of. All of your hopes and dreams, making a career out of this, winning championships and hanging another one of those banners."

First-year host B-Daht, who very capably guided the proceedings while also infusing them with some energy, occasionally punctuated some of his statements with, "Amen?" Had anyone asked for an amen after Davis' speech, the response would have been resounding. You could almost feel every fan in the building nodding in unison.

Roy Williams was 52 when he took over at Carolina. Davis was 50 when he was announced as the next head coach and is 51 today. The gap seems bigger than that. Williams was most fond of saying, "I am not of their generation," when referring to the modern player.

Davis—as Williams very well recognized—is indeed of this generation. One of his first post-Late Night conversations was about a pair of shoes that he loves. He stays current not by trying too hard—which can be immediately detected by a teenager, like a bear sniffing fear—but by being genuinely interested. It helps that he has kids in the same age range as those he's coaching. At home, he might catch some grief for not being cool enough, but when is a dad ever cool enough for his kids?

He's authentically involved enough with his own children to know what his players are listening to, to understand why TikTok matters even if it doesn't always make sense, and to realize that shoes are key.

Friday night was probably the last evening in the Smith Center in which someone somewhere doesn't question one of his decisions. That's part of the job. There will be a substitution in that Elizabeth City State game on Nov. 5 that perplexes someone. But his first team showed enough during the basketball portion of Late Night to provide some promise.

Thirty-one of Carolina's 87 attempted field goals were three-pointers, and while it's true that overall the Tar Heels hit just under a third of them, this year's likely primary outside shooters—Justin McKoy, Caleb Love, Kerwin Walton, Brady Manek and RJ Davis—were a combined 8-for-19, a healthy 42.1 percent clip that is a vast improvement over the most recent seasons. That's even with Walton and Manek going a combined 2-for-7 from the arc, a figure you aren't likely to see very frequently this year. Davis helped his team win the pre-scrimmage three-point contest while hitting 30 of his 40 attempts, and Walton swished 31-of-40. This will be a better outside shooting team simply by virtue of improved shooting depth.

"We're getting better every day," Davis said after the scrimmage. "I like the versatility we have on both ends of the floor. Our bigs can guard guards out on the perimeter and our guards can guard bigs down low on the block. There's so much versatility on the offensive end. One of the things we wanted to do was have spacing, balance and movement. We want to allow our guys to have space to use all their gifts and talents. Now we have bigs who can shoot the ball, and it automatically gives space so RJ and Caleb and the other guys can attack the basket."

It's likely to be an unending circle. This year will be about Hubert Davis…until the attention shifts to his team…and if that team plays well, it will likely cause even more spotlight on Davis.

He very clearly doesn't want that bright light. He desperately wants it to be about the players, and the first thing he told them in the Carolina locker room was that the evening had been about them. It will be, eventually. But it's not entirely bad to be reminded right now that Davis is the coach. And that no matter what happens on scoreboards around the ACC in the six months yet to come, he is exactly the person you want teaching your Tar Heels about being Tar Heels. He seems almost as excited about it as every person who filled a Smith Center seat on Friday.

"Every day I get to see what we have in this team," he said after Friday's scrimmage. "It was an opportunity for everyone to see what I've been seeing these last six and a half months—that we've got a chance. How much better Armando and Caleb and RJ have gotten. I want them to get excited about the new freshmen, Dontrez and D'Marco. Get excited about the new transfers, Justin and Dawson and Brady. Tonight was a great night, and a great celebration of having fans back."

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

RJ Davis

Caleb Love

Brady Manek

Justin McKoy

Kerwin Walton

Related Videos