Tar Heels’ Hubert Davis reflective, impressed by new group during summer workouts

In the days following North Carolina men’s basketball’s loss to University of Virginia in the ACC tournament, Tar Heels head coach Hubert Davis said disappointment was the only way to describe the state of the program.

Carolina didn’t earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels chose not to participate in any other postseason tournament, effectively ending their season at 20-13, 11-9 ACC after being named the No. 1 team at the beginning of the 2022-23 season.

“Going into last year, we had hopes and expectations and dreams of what we could become,” Davis said. “And at the end of the day, for a number of reasons, we just didn’t reach our full potential.”

Since then, Davis described the summer as nothing but work, and Thursday was the first time Davis spoke to the media since the end of the 2022-23 season. The Tar Heels have added five players from the transfer portal and three incoming freshmen, and retained a few key players including Armando Bacot and RJ Davis.

Davis said since the new players have started practices in Chapel Hill, he hasn’t been surprised with how things have gone. Davis joked about how much time the players have spent off the court this summer, saying they spent every meal together, practice together and have down time together.

“One of the things that I always tell everybody, in order to play for me, like the biggest thing for me is relationships,” Davis said. “And you can’t play for me unless you know me and I can’t coach you unless I know you. So the only way that you can know me and I can get to know you is for us to spend a ton of time together.”

The most heralded incoming freshman is point guard Elliot Cadeau, who reclassified to 2023 to join the Tar Heels a year early. The five-star recruit played in the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup for Sweden and also won a championship with Link Academy before choosing to head to Chapel Hill.

“He’s such a team guy. He just wants to win, wants to be a great teammate,” Davis said. “And that was the process in terms of him speeding up the process. And so I’m thankful that he’s here at Carolina; it’s been great.”

And while there’s a lot of optimism around what Davis believes this team could be when the season begins in November, it’s hard to guess how exactly North Carolina will compete in the conference after last year. Sure, the transfer portal editions, maturity and overall height in the Tar Heels’ roster might bring some new edge, but it’s hard to guess in July.

What Davis does know is that he said there are so many changes in the “time line” of college athletics, including the transfer portal, the COVID-19 extra year of eligibility, NIL and agent dealings. With those, it now makes it difficult to fully know what each team in the conference, and outside the conference, will look like.

“I know that, in the past, you could predict what a team’s gonna look like next year, and the year after that, and what it’s going to look like, at this time,” Davis said. “And you could recruit in a way knowing that this person will be here, this person is going to be gone, (but) you can no longer do that. So you can 100% predict that you don’t know what it’s going to look like from year to year. You just don’t.”

But Davis knows a few sticking points from last season that, with the new additions, can work in the Tar Heels’ favor. For example, shooting. Last season, North Carolina was last in the ACC in outside shooting, and 14th in team assists. Davis said he hopes that by adding “playmakers,” this year’s team can share the ball a bit more.

Davis rounded out his media availability talking about the new coaching staff limits, saying assistant coaches Marcus Paige and Pat Sullivan will fill in the on-court positions that went into effect July 1 this year. This allows Paige and Sullivan to focus on individual work and add in some in-game coaching.

But make no mistake, Davis still said he believes in “limited noise” on the sideline.

Davis also said he’s looking into the General Manager model that many other Division I programs are adapting, but hasn’t committed to it just yet. He said he recognizes the benefits of these general managers positions, which might alleviate some pressure off Davis monitoring the “other” responsibilities that comes with being a head coach.

There’s still no full schedule out for the Tar Heels yet, just the ACC/SEC Challenge game against Tennessee on Nov. 29. But the summer sessions are slowly starting to wind down, and at least so far, Davis has been pretty pleased with what he has seen.

“In the locker room and out there on the floor, the chemistry is there, and I really like it,” Davis said. “And there’s a desire to be good from different directions. From the guys that were here last year and experienced two years ago and last year, from the guys coming in as transfers, and then Zayden [High] and Elliot coming in as freshmen. And so there’s a sense of urgency and competitiveness and a drive that’s coming from different directions, but all meeting in the same place.”