Hubert Davis believes ‘little things’ cost North Carolina vs. Stanford

North Carolina lost 72-71 to Stanford at home on a last-second jump shot from Cardinal guard Jaylen Blake, causing the Tar Heels to drop to 5-2 in ACC play and to lose their seventh game of the season.

After the game, UNC head coach Hubert Davis pointed to a number of aspects of the matchup where he believes his Tar Heels could have performed better.

“Today, it wasn’t one thing. I felt like it was a number of just little details of just mistakes that we made throughout the entire game, whether it be on both ends of the floor,” Davis said. “Whether it was execution, defensively, out of bounds, underneath ball screen coverage, close outs, take two guy, and then on the offensive end, turnovers, shot selection, execution, being in the right spots.

“I just felt like it was a culmination of little things. I always say little things lead to big things happening. And I felt like those little things, those little mistakes, led to big things happening today as a result of a loss.”

The matchup was played tight throughout, as neither team was able to earn more than a seven-point advantage over the other during the afternoon. RJ Davis was the team’s leading scorer with 19 points and five assists, but only two of his teammates scored in double figures against the Cardinal.

North Carolina led for over 24 minutes during Saturday’s loss. Most of their numbers on the stat sheet are fairly similar, which caused the lead to be changed 14 times before the end of the second half. In the end, it was the little things that caused the Tar Heels to fly back to Chapel Hill in defeat.

“Sometimes it’s as simple as, we didn’t make a shot and they made a shot,” Davis continued. “… Sometimes those situations just happen, and again, we just made too many little mistakes throughout the entire game that put us in this situation.

“Take nothing away against Stanford, terrific team and extremely well coached, but we just made too many little mistakes.”

UNC will look to get back on the right track, but will have to do so on the road when they travel to Wake Forest on Tuesday night. Tip-off is set for 9 p.m. ET and will air live on ESPN.