Lucas: The Weight

By Adam Lucas

Hubert Davis was scrolling through Instagram on Tuesday when something made him pause.

The video was from the Carolina junior varsity basketball team, which is currently coached by Jackie Manuel. The post was very simple: it was a short clip of the team jumping around in the JV locker room after a recent victory. The celebration was so raucous that one participant lost his phone. Another kicked his knees up in the air as he jumped. No one on the team had their phones out to record it; they were all fully engaged, fully immersed in the moment.

Davis, who coached the JV team for seven years at Carolina, immediately recognized that feeling.

"With the JV team, there is no noise," Davis said. "There is no thinking about the NBA, no NIL talk, no meetings with parents. Those guys have a joy and passion to put on that uniform and play and be part of this program."

During his pregame talk prior to Carolina's game with Gardner-Webb—in fewer than 50 games as Carolina's head coach, Davis's pregame speeches have already become somewhat legendary—Davis told his team about that post, and about the obvious emotion in that locker room that was visible as they jumped around. "The only difference with our team is they are more gifted," the head coach said. "We have to have that type of energy. We haven't consistently had it at the beginning of the season, and that's what is frustrating me right now."

Carolina won on Tuesday, by the way. The Tar Heels beat Gardner-Webb, 72-66, in an ugly one. It was not a win about which anyone seemed particularly proud, perhaps with good reason. RJ Davis recorded just the second double-double of his Tar Heel career, and yet this was his postgame assessment of the game:

First, he smiled almost apologetically. "A win is a win," he said. "We battled it out. It wasn't pretty. I'm just glad we got the win."

Does that sound like someone who had a whole lot of fun getting his double-double?

Another question: in the 120 minutes that have led to Carolina's 3-0 record, in how many of those minutes have the Tar Heels appeared completely lost in the game? No thoughts about statistics, no thoughts about individual feelings, no thoughts about minutes.

Hubert Davis likely believes that number would be lower than he would prefer. But that has always been the most likely reality for the early part of this season. This is not last year's team, and remember that when you're thinking about "last year's team," what you're really thinking about is, "the team that played the last month of the season." Even that group took almost five months to figure out the best way to make each other great.

As Davis told his team at Monday's practice, while pointing to individual players, "For him to be great, you have to be great." Then he pointed at himself, and then to Sean May. "For me to be great, he has to be great."

This year's team hasn't yet figured out how to be great for each other. And why should they? Remember, it's three games into the season. They are the top-ranked team in the country, which means there is absolutely nowhere to go other than down, and they look like they are thinking about that impending fall every second they are on the court.

"There is weight on them," Hubert Davis said. "There is weight from whatever expectations they think people are putting on them. There is weight from their family. There is weight from their friends. Right now, they're in the locker room on their phones and they're looking at the comments. There is weight.

"You put a weighted vest on, you're going to be slower than when you take it off. That's what it is. Our guys will have to find a way to take it off, to take it away. The frustrating part is there's a limit to what I can do. They have to do it for themselves."

The coach doesn't mean you should feel sorry for the Tar Heels. It's not as though they're carrying some unimaginable burden. Life is pretty good when you're a Carolina basketball player. But with great advantages comes great pressure and, well, some weight.

The head coach has already promised "very spirited practices" on Thursday, Friday and Saturday after Wednesday's off day. That is nothing new. Sunday and Monday were likewise spirited; boxing out and rebounding were constantly emphasized at both sessions, and the result was a razor-thin 40-38 edge on the glass over the Bulldogs, which leaves the Tar Heels still in the negative in rebounding for the season.

Upcoming practices will be physical. Justin McKoy's six minutes on Tuesday night were notable largely because it was one of the first times this season that a Tar Heel has sprawled on the floor in search of a loose ball. Beyond the starting five, Sunday's minutes are most likely to go to the players who demonstrate that type of "thirst," as Davis calls it, over the next three practices.

But it is wrong to believe it will be nothing but screaming and punishments. Davis has proven to have an adept touch at understanding what his team needs at any given juncture of the season. He is well aware that they are dealing with some outside noise unlike anything he experienced as a player, and that being a high-profile college athlete is not always as simple as it appears from the outside.

"It's going to be like this every year," he said late on Tuesday night, the coach of the number-one team in the country who is 3-0 on the stat sheet and 0-3 in being satisfied with any of those efforts. "That's OK. We're going to fight through this. And we're going to win it."

Players Mentioned

RJ Davis

Justin McKoy

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