North Carolina’s 1991 Final Four loss to Kansas antagonized Hubert Davis as a player so much that he said he repeatedly watched a replay of it annually until he, as an assistant coach under Roy Williams, was part of the Tar Heels’ 2017 national title team.
Now as the head coach, Davis doesn’t anticipate another 20-plus years of torment following Carolina’s 72-69 loss to the Jayhawks in the 2022 national championship game. Davis has watched a replay of this last loss, by his count, more than 20 times since April, even joking that he sometimes “naively thinks maybe it’s going to be a different ending.”
“We weren’t just in the championship game, we had a one-point lead with 1:30 to go and you could see it, it was that close,” Davis said. “So you have those emotions of disappointment. But it’s also why it’s different, because you’re also filled with so much joy and thankfulness for what those guys accomplished last year. And so that’s very different than the experience and feeling after losing in 1991. There’s tears here for this one, but there’s also a huge smile on my face at the same time.”
