Hubert Davis jokes about best way to keep Jae’lyn Withers going after injury

Going into their road game against the Syracuse Orange on Saturday, head coach Hubert Davis knew his North Carolina Tar Heels needed a boost. That ended up coming from Jae’lyn Withers, who was playing through an injury in the win.

Withers was dealing with a badly poked eye and, after the game, Davis joked that the best way to keep him going strong was to poke his eye in practice again.

“I’m gonna poke him in the eye on Monday,” Hubert Davis joked. “That’s on the practice plan. That’s the first thing I’m gonna do is throw a ball at his other eye.”

Jae’lyn Withers finished the game with 19 points, six rebounds, and an assist. On the defensive end, he recorded three blocks. That’s in a season where he’s averaged 5.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game. Withers had recorded three blocks total in the previous nine games.

“Yeah, he got poked in the eye pretty significantly. There was some doubt that he was going to play. We came into shoot around this morning. Wanted to see if he could put on glasses. Didn’t like the glasses, but he felt like the swelling, his vision was good and there was just no hesitation. He wanted to be out there. Obviously, he made from an offensive standpoint, he hit threes, he finished around the basket, rebounded the basketball. That was huge,” Davis said.

“But I think the biggest impact for him is the size that we had at the four, where we didn’t have to double team the four, either. Because Syracuse, they can throw a ball and post to a number of guys. So without him, they were going to establish [Jyare] Davis down low on the post. J-Wit is our biggest four. His ability on the defensive end to be able to guard one-on-one was huge.”

Hubert Davis ended up playing Jae’lyn Withers for 24 minutes. Despite dealing with his eye injury, it was the first time Withers had played for more than 20 minutes in a game since November. It was a decision that went back to the energy he brought to the Tar Heels.

“I thought he brought great, positive energy on both ends of the floor. Just impactful plays. He has tremendous size and athleticism, and I thought he consistently made winning plays tonight on both ends of the floor. You know, it’s interesting. Sometimes, when you have an injury, it kind of takes you away. It takes you away from focusing on things that you normally focus on because you have an injury,” Davis said. “And it kind of gets you to focus on the right things. In the two years that he’s been here, that was the best game that J-Wit has ever played, and we needed all of it tonight.”

At 8-6 in ACC play this season, North Carolina isn’t going to catch up to the top of the conference in the regular season. However, Davis and the Tar Heels do have the opportunity to build momentum going into the postseason and build on their win over Syracuse. That starts on Wednesday night against rival NC State, which Withers hopes to make his impact felt during.