North Carolina coach Hubert Davis broke out the “Griddy Dance” on the makeshift stage the Tar Heels bombarded while waiting to be presented their NCAA tournament East Region championship trophy after beating Saint Peter’s 69-49 in the Elite Eight.
Davis, in just his first year, has Carolina back in the Final Four for a record 21st time, and the first since winning it all in 2017. It’s an accomplishment worthy of Davis letting loose doing a dance most parents should leave up to their kids. The celebration was certainly in the moment, but it’s also something bigger for North Carolina.
It’s a signal that the UNC brand is back. And it’s a signal that — after 18 seasons and three national titles being led by a Hall of Fame coach — the program is in the right hands.
“I felt like over the past couple of years we lost — I don’t know if it was respect from other programs, from other teams,” Davis said. “… I didn’t want them to have the experiences that they had the last couple of years. And that’s not typical North Carolina. And I want them to be respected. I want this program to be respected. And I feel like this year we have moved in the right direction with that.”
It wasn’t always apparent with this team. It suffered big losses in marquee non-conference matchups to Purdue, Tennessee and Kentucky in November and December. That trend continued in conference play when it lost road games to Miami and Wake Forest and a home game to Duke, all by 20 or more points.
Carolina also lost forward Dawson Garcia, who started 12 of the first 16 games of the season, and guard Anthony Harris, who was one of the top reserves off the bench, for the remainder of the season.
“The pressure as a first-year coach in any program is great, and it’s tenfold at North Carolina,” assistant coach Jeff Lebo said. “To see him weather the ups and downs and to be consistent with what he does, his projection to the team and his approach, was awesome. He’s the big reason why through those dark periods we had that we’re standing here today. That’s why I know he’s got the right stuff to be a terrific coach.”
Davis is taking Carolina to a Final Four where three Hall of Fame coaches await with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Self of Kansas and Villanova’s Jay Wright. All three have won national titles.
Davis, in reaching the Final Four as an eight seed, has done something Krzyzewski, Self and Wright have never accomplished. Regardless of seed, it’s the neighborhood in which Carolina is used to residing.
“We need to be in the mix and you know, quite frankly, I think it’s good for college basketball when we are great,” UNC athletics director Bubba Cunningham said. “We won in 2017, had a pretty good year in ‘18. But we didn’t for a couple. And it’s great to be back and great to be led by a guy who’s so passionate about the students at Carolina.”
Davis is just as passionate about giving a nod to the basketball tradition at Carolina. While speaking in the postgame news conference, he often had to pause as his emotions swelled up while talking about those that paved the way for him in coaches Dean Smith, Bill Guthridge and Roy Williams.
Davis said he didn’t get a chance to talk to Williams, but from the stage on the court he said he made eye contact with the former coach and told him thank you. Davis said he wanted to make the former coaches proud.
“I want every player that played for coach Smith, Coach Guthridge and Coach Williams — whether it’s in person, TV, highlights — I want them to be able to identify and go, ‘That’s the Carolina I went to,’” Davis said. “It’s really important for me that this program, with my own personality in my own shoes, looks exactly like the program that Coach Smith, Coach Guthridge and Coach Williams ran.”
Davis never lost confidence that the team could reach its potential. And now he’s the first, first-year coach to reach the Final Four since Guthridge did it in 1998.
The difference between the two is Guthridge had a returning team that reached the 1997 Final Four led by Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter. Davis doesn’t have any players that project to be two of the top five picks in the NBA draft as Jamison and Carter were in ’98.
The Tar Heels had to get acclimated to a new system with Davis running a four-out offense and favoring a stretch-4, a role that Brady Manek has blossomed in filling. It took time before the players understood their roles and settled into playing together.
“What you’re seeing right now is a team that takes on his personality and early on and they weren’t,” said assistant coach Sean May, who starred on Carolina’s 2005 national title team. “It took time and unfortunately, people didn’t want to give him the time that he deserved, but he’s done a hell of a job and if people can’t respect that, it’s okay.”
The last two years of Williams’ coaching tenure at UNC certainly didn’t feel like vintage Carolina basketball. The team in 2019-20 endured a rash of injuries and finished with the first losing season in Williams’ tenure. That was overshadowed by the entire NCAA season ending due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last season wasn’t much better, because of all the changes caused by the pandemic, including the summer pickup games that usually help the newcomers get acclimated to Chapel Hill and the returning players. Carolina’s young backcourt grew up in real time and it resulted in the first time a Williams-coached team was ousted in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Two years doesn’t seem that long considering the Heels shared the 2019 regular-season ACC title with Virginia and were a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. But for a player like Armando Bacot who came to Carolina to play in high-stakes games, that time felt like dog years.
“My first two years was just so tough and people kind of pushed North Carolina to the side saying how we were done and all this and that,” Bacot said. “I’m just so glad to make it to the Final Four, finally, and kind of cement myself. We’re not done yet, but just cement myself and us as a team — me and Leaky (Black), specifically, to be able to say we won.”
Black, the team’s lone senior who has played at UNC for four years, added: “It’s been a roller coaster the past few years, (we’ve) been laughed at on social media. It feels good to get the last laugh right here, but we’re not done yet.”
Sunday’s win was especially vindicating for Davis, who some within the fan base questioned if he was the right hire earlier in the season.
Lebo has been a head coach in four different stops including a six-year stint at Auburn and seven years at East Carolina. Lebo has known Davis longer than anyone on the staff, having been teammates at UNC during the 1988-89 season. He said Davis never wavered through the obstacles the season presented.
“I knew the weight of a lot of things — being the head coach at North Carolina, the first Black coach at North Carolina — weighed on him a little bit,” Lebo said. “He never said anything about it. But I knew. He never showed it and I am more happy for him than anybody.”
