CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hubert Davis has shown this side before — furrowed brow, despondent, at a loss for words — but not in quite some time. Probably not since his debut season, actually, when North Carolina was regularly on the wrong end of double-digit blowouts. But then came that magical run in March 2022, ending Mike Krzyzewski’s career, and poof: That Hubert Davis was gone, seemingly never to be heard from again.
And while UNC has had devastating defeats since — the ’22 championship game, last season’s Sweet 16 loss to Alabama — its coach has never fully reverted back to that early form. He’s been upset, sure. The man wears his emotions on his plaid sport coat sleeves. But he’s never been at a complete loss, unable to express what went wrong.
And then Tuesday night happened.
No. 7 Florida 90, UNC 84.
“Very head scratching,” Davis said in his postgame news conference. “I can’t explain.”
How could he? His team is now 6-5 overall, but more importantly, 1-5 vs. high-major opponents. Its 21-point comeback vs. Dayton in the Maui Invitational is a win that will age well, but it’s also the only such deficit UNC has been able to overcome this season. In games against Kansas, Auburn, Michigan State, Alabama, and now Florida — five likely NCAA Tournament teams, the sort of contemporaries North Carolina always keeps — the Tar Heels have trailed by 20, 19, 14, 18, and 17 points, respectively. They lost all five.
Groundhog Day, but make it as grating for a basketball coach as possible.
“It’s just not sustainable, especially against good teams,” Davis said. “It just doesn’t work.”
It doesn’t. It hasn’t. Consider Tuesday, when UNC went down 10 in fewer than six minutes, practically silencing the baby-blue masses inside Spectrum Center. Nine minutes into the game, Florida had made more 3-pointers (five) than North Carolina had made shots (four). The undefeated Gators quickly stretched that lead from 10 to 14 to 17. With just under six minutes until halftime, Florida was on the verge of doubling the Tar Heels up, 35-18. UNC didn’t make its first 3-pointer — one of only five it made all evening — until almost 16 minutes had elapsed, and even then, Elliot Cadeau’s triple only “cut” the margin to 12. If only we hadn’t already seen this same script five other times.
But whatever Davis is doing at halftime, he should bottle and sell it, because an entirely different group of Tar Heels took the floor out of the break. Suddenly, UNC seemed possessed defensively: like its players sprouted extra arms, the way they were bodying and probing and poking at Florida’s veteran guards. Seth Trimble and RJ Davis were especially potent as the head of the snake, snagging seven of UNC’s eventual 11 steals and going the other way with them. Not even three minutes into the second half, the dust cleared, and UNC’s staggering 11-0 run had brought it all the way back to one point down.
“If we play the way we played the second half, and apply that for a full 40 minutes,” RJ Davis said, “it would be a different outcome.”
Which is what makes those deficits so baffling and so frustrating. Neither Hubert Davis nor his players has an answer for them. They know they’re not conducive to success. They know, 11 games into this season, that they have a propensity for them. But then the whistle blows, and welp, would you look at that? UNC’s down double-digits, again.
How many more times does that have to happen until something finally clicks?
Or, ask a scarier question: What if this is just who this UNC team is?
It’s not like the slow starts are North Carolina’s only significant issue. They just shave down the already razor-thin margin for error this team has.
UNC’s size issues, for example, are well-documented; the team starts three guards 6 feet 3 or shorter, and has only two rotation players over 6-9. The inherent issues with that roster construction are obvious: poor rebounding, and limited defensive options. The Tar Heels’ defensive rotations — which have been an issue early this season — were actually much better vs. the Gators, but no matter how well UNC’s guards chased the Gators over screens, when push came to shove, they could only “contest” a midrange jumper so much. Kind of like an older brother shooting over his younger siblings in the driveway. What are you supposed to do?
And the same issue materialized on the boards. Florida entered Tuesday 10th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, per KenPom, which is what folks in the basketball industry would technically deem “not a good matchup.” (Ironically, this happening to UNC — long the standard-bearer in terms of offensive rebounding — is not lost on anyone. During Roy Williams’ 18-season tenure in Chapel Hill, UNC finished as the nation’s No. 1 offensive rebounding team three times, plus six other top-10 finishes.) But it should be no surprise, then, that UF outrebounded UNC 46-36 — and that the offensive glass was ultimately where the game was determined.
After North Carolina’s post-halftime outburst, the game mostly settled into the sort of scintillating back-and-forth fans had hoped for. UNC finally retook the lead, for the first time since leading 2-0, with just under eight minutes to play, after a Trimble and-one. Four minutes later, Cadeau — who had seven of the team’s 10 total assists — whipped back-to-back dimes to a cutting Davis, and then Jalen Washington on the alley-oop, to put UNC ahead 81-77.
Florida called timeout with 4:03 to play. In the huddle, as Hubert Davis clapped in his players’ faces, he also said two things over and over: “Get a stop! Get a rebound!”
If only.
Because coming out of that timeout, UNC flipped the same proverbial switch it had at halftime — only this time, it flipped back to OFF.
The truly decisive sequence came with the score tied at 84 and under a minute to play. North Carolina played solid defense and forced Florida guard Alijah Martin — who finished the game just 5-of-17 from the floor — into a turnaround midrange jumper, which clanked off the rim … only to immediately allow 6-foot-4 guard Will Richard to snag the offensive rebound. He put it up on his second jump, and as it dropped through the netting, the game effectively ended. RJ Davis missed a 3-pointer off a flare screen on UNC’s subsequent play, Florida got another offensive rebound on its follow-up possession (which led to two free throws), and that was that. Ballgame.
Over the final 4:03, Florida had seven shots to UNC’s three, four offensive rebounds — which it turned into eight points — to UNC’s zero, and made all eight of its free throws, while UNC went 1-for-4 from the line.
“Who wanted the ball more when the ball got in the air? That was them, kind of the whole game,” Trimble said. “We had stretches where that was us, but that was them the whole game — and especially in those last four minutes.”
Ultimately, the Gators closed the game on an 8-0 run, while UNC went scoreless for the final 2:13.
“That’s our next step as a team, as a unit, as individuals,” said freshman guard Ian Jackson, whose personal 6-0 run was key to UNC’s second-half turnaround. “Figure out how to start and finish the whole game.”
That sounds good. That sounds possible.
But what does the evidence say?
It’s still early — but 11 games in, it’s also not that early. Most of the nonconference is complete. ACC play has already started. The hay’s not fully in the barn — UNC still has No. 21 UCLA on Saturday in Madison Square Garden — but what does UNC actually have to show for its first third of the season?
Not much, if anything. Except for its penchant for starting slow, ending poorly and being able to string together only a few minutes of magic on any given night.
That sounds like a team much closer to the NCAA Tournament cutline than one that has any chance of making noise nationally, or even in a watered-down ACC.
It’s too early to say the Tar Heels are stuck here — but they haven’t necessarily shown anything to the contrary.
“We’re too far into the season just to continue to show flashes of how good we can be,” Trimble said. “It’s time to do it. No more flashes.”
(Photo of UNC coach Hubert Davis: Matt Kelley / Getty Images)
