Hubert Davis Gives Short Answer to Costly UNC Basketball Problem at Wake

On By Littum

Fourth-year UNC basketball head coach Hubert Davis was far from talkative at his press conference after his Tar Heels, who began the season with high expectations as the No. 9 in the AP Top 25 poll, fell to 12-8 overall and 5-3 in ACC play via their 67-66 road loss to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (15-4, 7-1 ACC) on Tuesday night.

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However, the brevity of Davis’s response was understandable. After all, the loss was his team’s second straight by a margin of just one point, the first time UNC has lost back-to-back games by that margin since it did so against South Carolina and Duke in 1968.

And had the Tar Heels instead managed to defeat Stanford and Wake Forest, they would now be on a six-game winning streak while on track to bounce all the way back from the string of quality losses in their daunting non-conference slate and earn an NCAA Tournament at-large bid come March. As it is, the Demon Deacons are on that ride, enjoying their six-game winning streak.

While Hubert Davis did not provide in-depth answers on what went wrong at Wake Forest, he disputed an observation that the UNC basketball offense was “stagnant” at times. No, the 54-year-old suggested the low-scoring stretches, particularly the Tar Heels’ six scoreless minutes at a critical juncture after leading at halftime, were just a matter of the ball not going in the hoop.

“I disagree,” Davis said of the reporter’s suggested “stagnant” descriptor. “I don’t think the offense was stagnant. I think we had some open shots. And we had some good looks. Sometimes shots go in and sometimes they don’t.”

More times than not, Tar Heel shots didn’t fall — in what was the program’s fourth straight loss at LJVM Coliseum. UNC, fueled by a combined 35 points from the only two players to reach double figures in starting guards RJ Davis and Elliot Cadeau, shot 40.0 percent from the field as a unit, 25.0 percent from three and 60.0 percent at the line.

Apparently it’s as simple as that.

Maybe shots will just start going in again when the Tar Heels welcome the struggling Boston College Eagles (9-10, 1-7 ACC) to the Smith Center at 2:15 PM ET Saturday (The CW Network).

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