NEW ORLEANS — A season of firsts for North Carolina under coach Hubert Davis ended one half shy of securing the ultimate prize.
Once the sting of Monday night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship loss to Kansas resides. Once the Tar Heels take a moment to breathe and reflect on the season that was, they’ll appreciate the journey and how it established a foundation for the Davis era.
“I would say that this season has been successful, just having Coach Davis as a coach,” said junior forward Armando Bacot, who tied Navy great David Robinson for the NCAA record of 31 double-doubles in a season. “He’s been amazing all year and everybody on our coaching staff has been great. We’ve all loved being here all year and playing for coach Davis. This won’t be the last time y’all will see this program here.”
Where the Heels ended up was nowhere near how they started, which was a testament to Davis, who was learning what worked and what did not during his first season.
Davis led UNC to a 29-10 record, which was a better first year than what Dean Smith accomplished in 1961-62 (8-9); and Roy Williams at Kansas (19-12) or Carolina (19-11) in his first seasons. Only Bill Guthridge, whose 34-4 mark in 1997-98 is an NCAA record for a first-year coach, had a better record.
Davis became the first rookie coach since Guthridge to guide his team to the Final Four and one of only 10 in NCAA history to accomplish the feat.
“Even though the whole season has been filled with so many blessings, it’s been so busy,” Davis said. “I haven’t had time to really process and think fully what has happened. I will say this, I like — not I like — I love what I’m doing. I just love being the head coach at the University of North Carolina and coaching these kids.”
Sometimes that meant tough love. In November when the Heels lost on consecutive days in the Hall of Fame Tipoff to Purdue and Tennessee, Davis lamented having to coach effort and toughness.
It wouldn’t be the last time. Carolina found itself on the wrong side of a 29-point loss to Kentucky in Las Vegas.
“It was rough,” said senior Leaky Black of the practices after those losses. “He was on one for sure. That was embarrassing. He was not pleased about that.”
That’s why the team was surprised after losing by 28 and 22 in consecutive games at Miami and Wake Forest, respectively, that Davis took a lighter approach.
“That whole week was just, that was rough, but he came in super positive,” Black said. “He was like, we still can complete everything we want to do accomplish, all our goals. Him having his faith really encouraged us to just keep fighting.”
When the Heels tried to nail down the turning point of their season, some referenced that discussion after the Wake Forest loss. Caleb Love and R.J. Davis mentioned their overtime win over Syracuse on senior night in their home finale.
But the game that Carolina grabbed the attention of outside observers came March 5, when it avenged a 20-point loss to rival Duke by beating the Blue Devils 94-81 in the last home game for retiring coach Mike Krzyzewski.
The atmosphere was unlike any other basketball game with some fans tailgating and many others who weren’t actually attending the game hanging out around Cameron Indoor Stadium just to be a part of the scene.
There was a celebrity roll call that included NBA commissioner Adam Silver and comedian Jerry Seinfield. And there were nearly 100 former Duke players under Krzyzewski who came back to watch.
“I don’t know how many teams would have been able to go into that setting on that day and win that game,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said before playing the Heels in the NCAA tournament first round.
That Carolina did proved it finally had developed the toughness that Hubert Davis had been preaching about.
They’d tap into that reserve more including a Sweet 16 win over UCLA when Caleb Love scored 27 of his career-high 30 points in the second half. And when they eliminated Duke in the Final Four to advance to the title game, thanks to Love scoring 22 of his 28 points in the second half of the semifinal.
“It hurts for us to get this far and come up short like this, everything we went through,” Love said. “But you know, the positive thing is I wouldn’t want to go through this with anybody else.”
Their bond grew stronger in their second-round game against Baylor when Brady Manek was ejected for a flagrant-2 foul. Carolina squandered a 25-point lead but regained its composure in overtime with a lineup it never used after Love fouled out. R.J. Davis scored a career-high 30 points and they knocked off the defending champs and No. 1 seeded Bears.
There’ll be many questions on the roster turnover in the coming weeks with players like Bacot and Love having to decide whether to turn pro. But one certainty is Manek has exhausted his eligibility.
In one season, Manek endeared himself to the Carolina fanbase. He led the team in 3-point shooting percentage (40.3) and made 3-pointers (98), which ranked second in program history for a single season behind Justin Jackson’s 105 in 2016-17.
Hubert Davis repeatedly said throughout the season that his only regret with Manek is that he only gets to coach him for one season. Manek played four years at Oklahoma and joined UNC as a graduate transfer thanks to the extra year of eligibility granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For a kid who grew up in Oklahoma, Manek embraced becoming a Tar Heel. He finished third on the team with 15.1 points per game and second with 6.1 rebounds per game. Manek arguably ranks among Bob McAdoo and Cameron Johnson as the best transfers in program history.
“I feel like that one year has been super special,” Manek said. “People have accepted me knowing that I’m only here for one year, but they still think of me as a four-year kind of guy.”
Manek said he came to Carolina for the chance to get past the first weekend of the tournament. He had never made the Sweet 16 at OU.
Davis wanted that for his entire team. Another mantra that he’d tell players was he wanted them to have their own stories. The coaching staff, who all played at Carolina, had national championships and Final Fours to speak about. Now this group does, too.
“I told them this after the game that my desperation for them to have those experiences in a Carolina uniform was very important for me,” Davis said. “I was very thankful that I feel like this year they were able to have — they were able to have a number of experiences that they could grab on and to lean on and to smile about.”
Monday’s loss may have hurt, but based on the year Carolina had, there will be much more to smile about in the future under Davis.
