Hubert Davis begrudgingly recalls North Carolina's loss to Kansas in 1991 Final Four

Hubert Davis has bad memories regarding the Kansas Jayhawks. In 1991, when the now Tar Heels head coach was a player at North Carolina, he faced KU in the Final Four.

Things went horribly wrong for UNC, as coach Dean Smith was ejected and star player Rick Fox scored just 13 points on 22 shots in the 79-73 loss. Davis did all he could for his team in that one, finishing the game with 25 points, but it was to no avail.

Davis went on to become an assistant coach at North Carolina under Roy Williams, and got his first taste of a national championship in 2017 when the Tar Heels defeated Gonzaga. Now in his first season as head coach, he is eyeing a national title against the team that caused him all that pain more than 30 years ago.

“Prior to us winning the national championship in 2017, from 1991 to 2017, I had watched that game at least once every year,” Davis said in a Sunday press conference. “It’s the best team that I ever played with, with King (Rice) and Rick and Pete Chilcutt as the seniors and George Lynch, we were as connected as this team is connected now. We really felt like we had a chance to win the national championship and we came up short. That was a game that Coach Smith got two technical fouls and got kicked out, and it was an emotional game and an emotional end to a season.

“Playing at Carolina, the thing, for me, that I always wanted was to cut down those nets as a player. And we were so close and weren’t able to be able to have that experience. That was the toughest loss that I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.”

Hubert Davis went on to enjoy a 13-year NBA career, but still made it a tradition to watch the loss to Kansas every year. The coach would still enter each viewing with the unrealistic hope that the outcome would be different, and said watching the game made him emotional.

But now, rather than continuing to mourn that game, he is attempting to use it as a lesson for his current team.

“It would make me cry,” the coach said. “I was hoping that — it’s interesting, every time that I watched it, I would think, it’s going to turn out differently. (Laughter). And I just did. One of the things I told the guys before we — I think it was before we came to New Orleans, I know it was during the NCAA Tournament — I said the best experience is tears. But I’ve told them this — the best experience that I have had as a player, hands down, was going to the Final Four.

“So that was a place of tears of joy but that was the best place, personally, that I had ever experienced. I told them, I played 12 years in the NBA and that was my finest as a basketball player, finest moment, just being part of the Final Four. I was trying to convey to them how special it is to be here. Now that they’re being able to experience it is great. So it was tears of joy, but it was also a place that I enjoyed so much that I wanted to be a part of again.”

Now, with the national championship set to tip off at 9:20 p.m. ET Monday, Davis will get that chance at redemption. For all his teammates and the fans that remember that 1991 loss, this game will hold a bit of extra weight.