Hubert Davis discusses North Carolina’s hangover following Duke win

After a rough loss in Atlanta, North Carolina returned to tobacco road and knocked off Duke in Chapel Hill. That game may have gotten to the Tar Heels, though, based on how they approached and then performed in a defeat at home to Clemson on Tuesday.

Hubert Davis was someone else who was also obviously not pleased about the mindset of his team going into the game. Their practices and prep for the Tigers wasn’t where it needed to be and, even though he called them on it in those moments, it didn’t end up changing the outcome come tipoff.

“I didn’t particularly enjoy or like our practices leading up to the game tonight,” said Davis.

“I checked them in both practices and in shootaround today,” Davis said. “The importance of attention to detail? We always talk about reacting and responding when things don’t go your way and when things do go your way. The importance of two things. Always showing up to work. And not being perfect – nobody is perfect – but, also, when you show up to work? Your job and your responsibility is to be the best that you can be.”

Whatever was going on with North Carolina then carried over into the 80-76, wire to wire loss. Davis didn’t want to take anything away from Clemson but said that it reached a point where he couldn’t get anywhere with his team considering the lack of effort that they were providing.

“It’s a thing that I told them in the huddle in the first timeout at the beginning of the game. It’s just not about Xs and Os. There’s nothing from a basketball standpoint that we can talk about until the energy, the effort, and the enthusiasm rises,” said Davis. “If that would rise? Things would change and we could start talking about basketball.”

“You really have to compliment Clemson and the way that they played. They’re a really good basketball team, extremely well-coached,” Davis stated. “They were deserving of winning tonight.”

Clemson stormed out to a 17-4 lead in part due to North Carolina’s sluggish start. While UNC woke up a bit, they still couldn’t cut into the margin in the first half as the Tigers shot 48.5% from the field, including 42.9% from three. That’s why the home team went down as much as 16 total and by nine heading into the locker room.

The second half saw some form of improvement from the Tar Heels as their offense got above 40% from the field and three while their defense kept the Tigers under 32% from both. Over the half, that allowed them to bring it to within a tie at 70 with 4:18 to go. From there, though, Clemson went on a 7-0 run to extend it for good and eventually take it by four.

Everyone at North Carolina seems well aware that, after defeating the Blue Devils, the way that they came into this game is what cost them the final outcome. That’s even more harsh for them having now dropped two of three.

Even so, Davis knows that all they can do now is focus on playing better and improving over the final stretch of conference contests this month

“In order to win a game like this? Just didn’t play well enough,” Davis admitted.

“I’m specifically thinking about tonight. We just didn’t play our best basketball game. So, again, I don’t know what else to do other than to get back up and go to work. Get better, continue to grow, and continue to move forward,” said Davis. “There’s more to be said and more to be done. What is it? We’ve got eight more regular-season games to go? Let’s see if we can continue to improve and get better for the remainder of the regular season.”