Hubert Davis: Off week comes 'at the perfect time' for UNC after Duke loss

These next few days came scheduled at the right time in the middle of conference play for North Carolina.

Hubert Davis said so while speaking to the media on Monday. He felt it was “perfect” for the Tar Heels so they can work on themselves, both on the court and injury-wise, as well as rest rather than preparing for an opponent sometime this week.

“Yeah, I think it’s coming at the perfect time,” said Davis.

“I think it’s a time where, um, to give us to regroup. We get to practice and work on us as opposed to preparing for a game mid-week. And get some guys healthy in terms of some bumps and bruises,” Davis said. “I think, mentally, we needed a break and, you know, we’ll practice this week and we’ll have a day off in the middle of the week.”

North Carolina won’t take the floor again until Saturday when they play Pittsburgh for the second time in a dozen days.

That game was part of this current, two-week skid ongoing at UNC. They have lost four of their last five with a pair of one-point losses to Stanford and at Wake Forest, an eight-point loss at Pitt, and then a 17-point loss, that being the worst of the season, in their last game this weekend at No. 2 Duke. The one win also required an overtime at home as they got everything they could handle for 43 minutes against Boston College.

With that, the Tar Heels have now fallen to sixth in the ACC. They’re also projected on the outside of the bubble for the NCAA Tournament with a record at 13-10 overall.

Again, though, this week comes at a great time with North Carolina getting a few days to reset before a month or so with nine games to decide where they stand going into the postseason.

“It just comes at a perfect time for us to regroup as a team and refocus on the things that we need to do in order to get better and for the outcomes to be better,” Davis said. “I just really believe that it came at a perfect time to get this week without a mid-week game.”

Davis: UNC still has the opportunity to turn this season around

Although having lost four of five, Hubert Davis knows North Carolina can still be all they hope to be.

On Monday, Davis said they still have at least ten to fourteen opportunities, pending their seeding in the conference tournament, to determine what they can do regardless of where they are right now.

“I do communicate with the team on, you know, regardless of where we are now and people’s opinions, this team still has a chance to achieve and experience everything that this team wants to achieve and experience,” said Davis. “We have nine more regular season games left – we have that. We have the ACC Tournament. So, like – and it’s all under our control in terms of us playing the best that we can be.”

“We still have an opportunity to turn this season around and we need to focus on becoming the best team that we can possibly become. And, at the end of the day, live with the results,” Davis said.