Hubert Davis has been taking considerable heat from reactionary North Carolina fans on social media since his 22nd-ranked Tar Heels limped home from the West Coast with a pair of losses last weekend. The main source of their frustration was their team’s defensive performance in the games at Stanford and Cal, and was further fueled by a quote from star freshman Caleb Wilson after UNC faltered down the stretch in a 95-90 loss to the Cardinal.
“They ran the same play pretty much every time down the court,” Wilson said. “They stuck to exactly what was working.”
The comment was interpreted by some as criticism of Davis for his unwillingness or inability to make adjustments. Things only got worse two days later after Cal shot 50 percent from the floor and went 14 of 26 from beyond the three-point arc on the way to a 84-78 upset of the Tar Heels.
But Wilson made it clear after Wednesday’s bounce-back home victory against Notre Dame that UNC’s recent defensive issues were more product of he and his teammates than their coach and his staff.
“I hate when people try to blame Hubert for our lapses,” the 6-foot-10 forward said after contributing 22 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists against the Irish. “Our coaches are teaching us the right things. It’s all about our effort and us playing as hard as we can. The coach can only do so much. He’s not out there playing, so when we pick up and play with pride, play with effort, we’ll get the results we got today.”
Davis hinted at some possible changes when asked about his team’s recent performances during Monday’s weekly ACC coaches conference call. While the only noticeable tweak was the insertion of Virginia Tech transfer Jaydon Young into the starting lineup for the first time this season, the results were vastly different.
The Tar Heels held Notre Dame to just 8 of 25 three-pointers, the first time in the past five games that their opponent didn’t hit double digits from distance. Only two of the treys came in the second half. Davis attributed the improvement to a heightened sense of urgency among his players, something he noticed before they ever took the court against the Irish.
“We had two really good practices,” he said, adding that he views “any practice, every shootaround, any game, it’s an opportunity to get better.”
It’s yet to be seen whether the Tar Heels can maintain both the urgency and defensive intensity they showed against Notre Dame as they look to rebound from their disappointing 3-3 start in the ACC. Although Wilson is among the youngest players on the team, Davis is counting on his freshman big man to be a leader in that effort, starting with Saturday’s challenging test at Virginia.
“These last couple days, he’s one of the guys that was more vocal, more vocal in practice, more vocal right before we went out for warm-ups for the game,” Davis said Wednesday. “I said my last words before we went out to the floor. He said, ‘Coach, can I say something?’ And he went after the team. He said, ‘Look, let’s go out there and compete.’ He’s never done that before, and so I really like that from him.”
West Coast swing is no pleasure trip thanks to Cal, Stanford improvement
osing twice in three days on the West Coast wasn’t a good look for a team with championship aspirations. At least North Carolina can take solace in the fact that its misery has company. Of the three other ACC teams to make the cross-country trek to California, two others – Louisville and Notre Dame – also came home with at least one L on their record. Only Duke was able to make it through the trip unscathed.
It would be easy to chalk up the results to the difficulties of travel and playing in a time zone three hours from home. And both certainly factor into the equation, just as they do when Stanford and Cal make their trips east. But Cardinal coach Kyle Smith, whose team went 9-1 against ACC competition in Palo Alto last season, has a different explanation.
“I don’t know if it’s as big a deal as people make it out to be, but it sure is something to talk about and write about,” Smith said, acknowledging that “it’s a tough road trip. … I just think Cal and Stanford are better, period.”
Smith’s Cardinal is 14-5 heading into the weekend with freshman guard Ebuka Okmorie ranking among the nation’s top 10 scorers at 22.1 points per game. Cal, meanwhile, has already matched its win total of 14 from last year, led by intra-ACC transfers Dai Dai Ames from Virginia and Chris Bell from Syracuse.
Davis acknowledged as much when asked to explain what went wrong on UNC’s West Coast trip. “The reason we lost is that we didn’t play well, and Stanford and Cal did,” he said. “They’re good basketball teams.”
And yet, the rigors of coast-to-coast travel can’t be completely discounted. It’s a factor Cal coach Mark Madsen consciously tries to exploit. “It’s hard to travel,” he said. “So we try to maximize it by coming out with great energy at the start of games, playing fast, getting deflections … all those things.”
So far, Duke is the only Atlantic Coast team that has been able to match that early energy in the Pacific Time Zone. For that, coach Jon Scheyer credits Davis Beischer, the Blue Devils’ director of basketball operations. “He was the least liked person in the entire program on the trip out there because he was responsible for waking players up on the flight and not allow them to sleep,” Scheyer said. “Davis was getting the dirtiest looks you’ve ever seen, but I thought that helped us get off to a good start. After that, we just focused on the preparation and the focus. That’s what was different for me.”
Game fixing indictments raise a red flag for ACC coaches
The college basketball world was rocked last week when a grand jury in Philadelphia indicted 17 former and current players, among others, as part of a massive game-fixing operation. Almost all of those involved were part of mid-major programs – where the players have smaller Name, Image and Likeness deals and are more likely to be bribed, and compromised games can easily go unnoticed outside the glare of the national spotlight.
But given the pervasiveness of the gambling industry and the amount of money involved, ACC coaches worry that the problem could eventually filter up to the game’s higher-profile programs. If it hasn’t already.
“It’s scary, because you can’t control that as a coach,” Clemson’s Brad Brownell said earlier this week on the ACC’s weekly coaches conference call. “Obviously we’re all about protecting the integrity of the game. But when they get outside these walls there are just so many pressures, it’s certainly not something I’d be surprised by. I don’t think many people are.”
Last week’s indictments, which involved payments of between $10,000 to $30,000 for players to affect the results of games between 2022 and 2025, are the latest in a series of gambling-related scandals to have hit the sports world in the past year.
Seth Davis’ Picks Against the Spread: Battle of the Pitinos, UNC at Virginia
Jan 24th: Seth Davis makes his picks for Saturday’s top games, including UNC at Virginia, St. John’s at Xavier, Illinois at Purdue and more
In October, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier were arrested as part of a federal investigation into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games. A month later, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were accused of intentionally rigging pitches to help gamblers cash in on prop bets.
Because college athletes are younger, more impressionable and less experienced with money, several ACC coaches have voiced concern that their players could easily be lured into illegal activities by the promise of a quick buck. It’s a threat the NCAA recognized last fall when it quickly rescinded a rule that would have allowed college athletes to gamble on professional sports.
“They’re very vulnerable and there’s so many ways to get them now,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “It’s so prevalent. It’s everywhere. You watch SportsCenter and they have segments on there about betting, about gambling. You listen to a sports podcast, they talk about it constantly. The FanDuels, there’s commercials about it. It’s so easy to do. Their peers are doing it. So, yeah, I worry about it.”
While Capel and his fellow ACC coaches are in agreement that illegal gambling is a problem, especially as it relates to easily manipulated prop bets such as individual players’ scoring totals and halftime point over/unders, there’s no real consensus on what to deal with the situation. About the only thing coaches can do is continue to educate their players to steer clear of gambling interests and to, in the words of Brownell, “remind your guys what’s going on.”
“Our ability to teach life lessons through the game of basketball is something I think all of us college coaches take pride in,” Louisville’s Pat Kelsey said. “So pointing out things that happen outside the 94 by 50 foot rectangle is something we try to teach our guys so they don’t fall into the same traps.”
Around the rim
- While Virginia’s future appears to be in good hands with the arrival of new coach Ryan Odom, who has the 14th-ranked Cavaliers off to a 16-2 start, the folks in Charlottesville will take a look back to the past on Saturday when the court at John Paul Jones Arena is renamed in honor of former coach Tony Bennett. It’s a gesture that’s especially meaningful to Odom, who grew up around Virginia’s program while his father Dave served as an assistant to another successful former coach, Terry Holland. “All his former players, our fans and players and people that love this school appreciate what coach Bennett has done for this program, what he’s done for this university,” Odom said. “This is just a small token of our appreciation for him and his family.” Virginia joins Duke (Mike Krzyzewski), North Carolina (Williams) and Syracuse (Jim Boeheim) as ACC schools that have named their home floors after legendary former coaches.
- Will Wade still has Brad Brownell’s number. Ten months after leading McNeese State to a first-round NCAA Tournament upset of Clemson, NC State’s first-year coach returned to his alma mater and beat Brownell’s Tigers again on Tuesday, 80-76 in overtime. The interesting aspect to the “rematch” is that NC State actually had more players that played in the game last March than Clemson. Quadir Copeland and Allyn Breed followed Wade from McNeese to Raleigh while Dillon Hunter, the only Tiger still in the program, didn’t play because of injury. “This was a big day for NC State,” said Wade, who was returning to Littlejohn Coliseum for the first time since serving as Oliver Purnell’s director of operations in 2006-07. “It had nothing to do with me. We needed to find a way to win a game like this.” The win helped the Wolfpack bounce back from a home loss to Georgia Tech three days earlier while handing Clemson its first conference loss.
- Roy Williams’ role at North Carolina has been limited to that of a supportive fan since his retirement in 2021, but he still has plenty of clout when it comes to the school he loves and the program he led to three national championships. That’s why the Hall of Fame coach has lent his voice to the chorus of fans and alumni concerned over growing speculation that the Dean Smith Center will be replaced by a new, off-campus arena. Williams, along with former All-American Tyler Hansbrough, was featured in a video advocating renovation, rather than replacement of the current venue. “I’ve given my opinion very strongly. I’m very much in favor of staying here in the Smith Center, remodeling, renovating, whatever we need to do. I do not want to go off campus,” he said in the video. “I am hopeful that the administration really is very sincere, and I think they are, about looking at other options and not just saying we’re going to have to go (off campus) for financial reasons. North Carolina can be different.”
- Four ACC teams – Miami, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech – already have more wins this season than they did a year ago, the most of any conference. Each is ranked within the top 20 of most improved Division I teams this season by win percentage, with the Hurricanes ranking first, the Cavaliers fourth, the Hokies 12th and the Wolfpack 20th).
- The ACC has adjusted its weekend schedule because of the impending winter storm threatening a large portion of its geographic footprint. Wake Forest at Duke and North Carolina at Virginia have been moved up to noon tipoffs on Saturday, while Virginia Tech at Louisville will begin at 2:15 p.m., 90 minutes earlier than originally scheduled. Monday’s game between Duke and Louisville at Cameron Indoor Stadium could also potentially be moved, depending on the Cardinals’ ability to travel.
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