Three takeaways from No. 7 UNC basketball’s resounding Senior Night win over Notre Dame
The loudest ovations during North Carolina’s pregame Senior Night festivities on Tuesday lingered for a while, as if the Smith Center crowd was not yet ready to stop cheering for Armando Bacot or RJ Davis. As if the people here were trying to will their return.
For Bacot, there’s no choice. After more than four years, five seasons and 162 games, he at last played in the Smith Center for the final time Tuesday night, and finished with 14 points and five rebounds in the Tar Heels’ 84-51 victory against Notre Dame.
“I feel like I’ve been here forever,” Bacot said in a pre-recorded message UNC played during a timeout during the second half. “ ... You guys know I’ll miss y’all.”
Davis, meanwhile, does have a decision to make. The home crowd was well aware, and serenaded him with a chant of, “One more year! One more year!” as his teammates crowded around him before he hugged his parents during a pregame ceremony that honored UNC’s seven seniors. Then Davis went out, as he has often done this season, and put on a show.
He finished with 22 points and made four 3-pointers. Davis and Bacot, among others, left the game with a little more than three minutes remaining, to a standing ovation from the Smith Center crowd. UNC coach Hubert Davis embraced both as they made their way to the bench.
Though Bacot has played his final college home game, RJ Davis could return for a fifth college season, given the extra year of eligibility the NCAA granted players whose time in college was affected by the pandemic. And like Bacot before him, Davis could conclude that the benefits of remaining a college player – financial and otherwise – outweigh those of pursuing a professional career.
That decision will be made in the weeks and months ahead. For now, Bacot and Davis have entered into a period that will help define their legacies at UNC. With their victory Tuesday, the Tar Heels clinched at least a share of the ACC regular season championship – their 33rd. They could win it outright with a victory at Duke on Saturday.
Then the ACC and NCAA tournaments await. The game against Notre Dame, which entered the Smith Center among the ACC’s worst teams, offered the Tar Heels their last chance for a tune-up before the stakes increase. And indeed, UNC, three days removed from a strong second half in a comeback victory on Saturday against N.C. State, needed some time to awaken.
To no one’s surprise, Davis, the front runner for ACC Player of the Year honors, provided the boost. His 3-pointer and breakaway layup, in the span of less than a minute, helped the Tar Heels break through the doldrums a little more than midway through the first half. Davis’ quick burst turned a two-point UNC lead into a seven-point margin.
From there, it only grew.
Here are three takeaways from UNC’s runaway victory:
1. Another sluggish start for the Tar Heels, but does it matter?
There was a several-week stretch in late December and throughout much of January when UNC looked like one of the best two or three teams in the country. The Tar Heels were projected as a top seed in those (way too) early NCAA Tournament projections.
They looked not only like a national championship contender, but like a legitimate favorite. UNC hasn’t quite been that team for a while, and the Tar Heels again began with some sluggishness Tuesday night, just as they did on Saturday against N.C. State.
Now, granted: That didn’t really matter against the Wolfpack. Not with how UNC played during the second half. And it hardly mattered, too, on Tuesday night against Notre Dame. The Tar Heels began the second half on a 16-0 run, and led by 32, and it was, at that moment, difficult to believe that this was actually a close game for more than 10 minutes during the first half.
But it was, with UNC leading by only two with nine minutes, 41 seconds remaining before halftime. The Tar Heels closed the half on a 23-9 run, and that was that.
Better teams will be in a better position to punish UNC for starting slowly, and the competition stiffens starting Saturday at Duke. If anything, the Tar Heels have looked a bit bored in the first half lately. Maybe that changes when the stakes are higher.
2. This was the Senior Night UNC’s seniors deserved.
Which is to say it was more of a celebration than anything.
Outside of the first 10 minutes of the actual game, this was about as stress-free of an evening as it could be for Hubert Davis and his team. How free of stress was it? Well, consider that Bacot found it appropriate during the second half to attempt not one 3-pointer – something he has rarely done, for obvious reasons – but two 3s. And both actually went in.
When it’s your night, it’s your night.
Bacot had his moments Tuesday. RJ Davis had plenty of them. And Cormac Ryan, the graduate transfer from Notre Dame who finished with 14 points against his old team. Three other senior walk-ons, Duwe Farris, Rob Landry and Creighton Lebo, all started, carrying on a tradition started by Dean Smith.
3. Now it gets real
Hubert Davis has an affinity for talking about “what’s real,” as he likes to put it. That two-word phrase has become one of his go-tos, both with the media and with his team, which he has said receives steady reminders about “what’s real” in effort to combat “the noise” (another one of Davis’ go-tos).
What’s real, for UNC, is that it’ll enter its regular-season finale at Duke on Saturday at 16-3 in the ACC, with a one-game lead over the Blue Devils in the conference standings. With a victory Saturday, UNC will win the ACC regular season championship outright for the 22nd time.
Also real: the warm-ups are over. Tuesday night was essentially the last one, and Hubert Davis would dispute the notion that it was a warm-up in the first place. But it was, in a sense. Notre Dame didn’t have much to play for. The Tar Heels, even despite their slow start, spent much of the second half coasting, with the result not at all in doubt.
The magnitude of everything now increases, starting now. There’s the game at Duke on Saturday. Then UNC’s first ACC tournament game, next Thursday. And then the beginning of the NCAA Tournament where, at worst, UNC will likely enter as a No. 2 seed.
Indeed, now it gets real.
This story was originally published March 5, 2024 at 8:58 PM.
