UNC men’s basketball head coach Hubert Davis recorded his final radio show of the season Wednesday night. Davis addressed multiple topics during the hour-long broadcast, including next steps for his program, goals in the transfer portal and his recruiting process during the offseason.
Here are some of Davis’ comments, which have been lightly edited for clarity:
Q: What has the program been doing since the season-ending loss last week?
Davis: We just finished on Friday, and you just don’t have an opportunity to be able to reflect and take a deep breath and be able to process the whole season and what went on. You automatically have to go into the next phase, because the reason why we have those [exit meetings with players] is you need to know. The transfer portal started on Monday, and Monday starts the process of building next year’s team. I’ve been on the phone all day long Monday. Meetings all day Tuesday, all day today [Wednesday]. I’ve got a Zoom call at 8:45 tonight and another Zoom call at 9:45 tonight. It’s a lot of meetings, a lot of communication for the current team, and talking to kids in the transfer portal as well.
Q: How difficult is it to deal with players transferring out, as Elliot Cadeau and Jalen Washington did earlier this week?
Davis: When we had the team meeting on Sunday, I said, ‘For the guys that are eligible to come back, I want everybody back.’ I said, ‘I love you guys. I recruited you guys and I’ve never had in my mind that you wouldn’t finish it out here.’ But I am thankful for the two years that I had the chance to coach Elliot and the three years for Jalen Washington. I couldn’t ask for better young men to be around every day. And even though their careers won’t finish at North Carolina, my support for them and their family will never leave. When I say that it’s a full-life ride at Carolina, that’s what I mean. And I will be in Elliot and Jalen Washington’s life for the rest of their lives. Because I love those kids.
North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis, left, gives instructions to forward Jalen Washington (13) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against American, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)
Q: How do you upgrade your team’s physicality for next season?
Davis: That has to change next year. It’s non-negotiable, and the reason why I say that is because those are things that you have control over. Hitting 14 threes against San Diego State? You can’t rely on that. I don’t care how good a shooter you are, or as well as you shoot as a team, there are gonna be nights when the ball just doesn’t go in. But what is sustainable is your energy, effort, attention to detail, the little fundamental things that you can bring to the table every day. And those are the things that have to be consistent moving forward.
Q: How do you go about recruiting players out of the transfer portal?
Davis: There are two boxes that have to be checked. There has to be a want and a need. I’m not gonna recruit anybody that we want but we don’t need, or we need but we don’t want. That’s why these meetings with the current team in regard to who’s staying and who’s going really identifies and gives us a clear picture of what we need and what we want moving forward for next year’s team.
The easiest thing is looking at the talent. But there are other things that play a factor. Number one: their personality, their character. Number two: what is their will and their want to in coming here? Is it just for them or is it to win a championship for Carolina? Number three: you’ve gotta be the best in the classroom. Are you interested in going to class and graduating?
And then also, can this person handle the spotlight to play here? This is different. It’s just different. And I’m not trying to distinguish ourselves from anyone else, but I am. The lights are bright here and everything that you do will be critiqued or criticized. And for some people, it’s very difficult. They can’t handle that. So what we have to decide is, is this person able to handle the spotlight here and be able to perform on this type of stage?
Q: How do you learn about a potential portal recruit when the process goes so fast?
Davis: You try to get as much information as possible. You talk to not only a number of family members and friends, but also coaches in their conference and former teammates. You’re doing intel and trying to find out information from everyone in regard to not only what type of player he is, but what type of person he is, his work ethic. How does he interact with his teammates? How does he approach practice? Is he someone that’s huge on preparation and process? Is he a leader? Was he a leader on his former team? It’s a lot of information. It’s not just one Zoom call, it’s multiple Zoom calls. There are a lot of conversations, there are a lot of visits. We’ll be having visits here really soon, spending a lot of time together to try to figure out if this is a good match for us.
Q: Will size be a factor in your recruiting decisions in the transfer portal?
Davis: 100 percent. We’ve gotta get bigger. We just do, from A to Z. Yeah. You talked about the physicality of Ole Miss – their positional size was bigger than us. Yeah. And that’s the way we were the whole season. So that’s one of the things that we’re definitely gonna address. We’ve gotta get bigger and, in terms of that physicality, you have to have a presence. You have to be bigger. And that’s what we’re addressing this summer.
Q: Will you be utilizing analytics more in the future?
Davis: That’s something that I want to take a deep dive in and look at more. It won’t drive my decisions, but it definitely can help, and I want to understand it more. Individual development, how we’re approaching shot selection, where we are getting shots efficiently. I want to do a deep dive into analytics and see how it could help us be better on both ends of the floor.
Q: Do you believe emphasis on NIL payments affects players’ performances in games?
Davis: I believe it affects their play and it affects their mental health. That’s where a lot of the noise comes from. The comments that these kids get after games are not, ‘Can you make a shot?’ It’s scary. I mean, they’re making threats on these kids’ lives. These kids get this every game and it goes directly to them. It goes directly to their families. You’re 18, 19 years old and you miss a three and you check your phone and there’s a number of people saying that they would like for you to lose your life. That’s what the kids get every game.
So I always tell the guys, ‘Put the phones away. Put the phones away. Put the phones away.’ That’s what I talk to them about: the noise. And now you add NIL and now people feel like they even have more of a right to say these things to these kids. Our players get death threats all the time. And for them to continue to show up with a smile on their face and for them to stay the course and stay connected to be able to play their best basketball the last two months of the season is absolutely remarkable.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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