Exclusive Excerpt: Davis Makes Technical Tweaks

From TOGETHER: THE AMAZING STORY OF CAROLINA BASKETBALL'S 2021-2022 SEASON by Adam Lucas, Steve Kirschner, and Matt Bowers. Foreword by Hubert Davis. Copyright © 2022 by Tobacco Road Media, Inc. Published by the University of North Carolina Department of Athletics and distributed by UNC Press. Used by permission of the publisher.

Books are available to preorder now using this link for a 40 percent discount--shipping should begin later this month.

Carolina's in-season turnaround wasn't all team meetings and motivation.

The secondary break has been a staple of Tar Heel basketball since the Dean Smith era. The trailing big man knocking in a foul-line jumper has frustrated opponents for decades, just as a back screen for an alley-oop dunk worked for Michael Jordan just as flawlessly as it did for Vince Carter. Roy Williams remained fully committed to secondary for his entire tenure in Chapel Hill.

That philosophy continued—with some adjustments—in the early weeks of the Hubert Davis era. "We had tweaked it to fit our personnel," Davis said. "We didn't have Tony Bradley down there or Kennedy Meeks, where you just throw the ball into the post. We didn't even have the 2021 team, where we had four big guys. So we had already tweaked how we ran secondary."

Even more changes in personnel, however, caused a much more significant change. When the shorthanded Tar Heels attacked against Boston College and Notre Dame, driving to the basket and creating better scoring opportunities, the Carolina coaching staff realized the team was much more efficient playing a different style. This wasn't a small adjustment. It was essentially Tom Osborne ditching the wishbone at midseason to install a run-and-shoot attack.

"Secondary just wasn't working," Davis said. "We weren't getting anything out of it and we were wasting 10 or 15 seconds off the shot clock. We went up to play Boston College and we were down three guys, so I said just run 2K. We put two guys in the corner, two guys on the wings, and the five man set ball screens and rolled to the basket. And when we did it, I thought, 'Huh, this looks pretty good.'"

The Tar Heels demolished Boston College with that offense and used it on occasion in a road loss at Notre Dame. The true proof, though, came against noted defensive juggernaut Virginia, when the Tar Heels decimated the Cavaliers—a program that had dominated Carolina head-to-head in recent seasons—74–58 with a newly efficient offensive attack.

"If it can work against them, it can work against anybody," Davis told his assistants. "And by the end of the year, we weren't running any secondary at all."

It was an unprecedented switch to juggle the primary offense in midseason. But Carolina's players trusted their coach's experience. "At the end of the day, Coach Davis has played 12 years in the League, and he was successful," Caleb Love said. "We had no choice but to trust him. He's accomplished more than we have. And he told us we weren't getting anything out of secondary, that it wasn't benefiting this year's team. It might benefit next year's team or last year's team, but it just wasn't for us. For him to make that change and adjust the entire offense was amazing to me. The way he and this staff can put in certain plays on the fly and have them work right away is crazy. We were a team that was sinking. And he fixed it."

Starting guards Love and RJ Davis were largely excited about a change that would put the ball in their hands more often, creating driving opportunities and allowing them to make decisions. It was a tougher proposition for Armando Bacot, Carolina's marquee player whose game was built on receiving the ball close to the basket.

"I knew secondary was my bread and butter," Bacot said. "I wasn't used to setting screens and rolling. I knew it meant I was going to have to change my game a little. There were times I didn't get the ball when I was used to getting it, and I was in my feelings a little bit. I had to look in the mirror and realize that wasn't what was best for the team. This was going to force me to change my game, to make reads in the screen and roll, in a way that would help me at the next level. And it was going to help our team. Coach Davis revolutionized our offense in the middle of the season."

It was a high-risk strategy. Voluntarily taking Bacot off the low block seemed to weaken Carolina's strongest offensive asset. Neither Love nor Davis had yet proven they had the distributing mentality of a point guard. Sending six-foot-nine Brady Manek away from the basket was a move that ran counter to most of Carolina's basketball tradition, which was built on big men scoring high-percentage baskets close to the rim.

Hubert Davis wasn't worried.

"It wasn't scary to me, because the changes we were making weren't unknown to me," the head coach said. "We were using our guys in the wrong way. We were throwing Brady the ball and telling him to post up and hold his position. That's not him. He can finish around the basket, but he has to be on the move. He has to be setting a screen and rolling or getting the ball on a pick and pop.

"I know this sounds weird, but that's the way I played when I was the JV coach. That's the way I love to play. I love scoring points in the paint. But my time with ESPN, my time in the NBA, and my time as the JV coach showed me there are other ways to get points in the paint. There are other ways of getting fouled and getting to the free throw line. We don't have big guys on the JV team. So that's the way I played. I knew what we were doing. And I knew it would work."

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

RJ Davis

Caleb Love

Brady Manek

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