Hubert Davis puzzled by R.J. Davis' rough shooting vs. Pittsburgh

North Carolina guard RJ Davis had by far his worst offensive outing of the season in this week’s loss against Pittsburgh. The shifty junior is one threat in the Tar Heels’ three-headed scoring monster and is a reliable 16 points per night. However, against the Panthers, Davis made just three shots, despite attempting 15 of them, good for just 20% shooting from the field. You know it’s bad when a player has more missed shots than points, and Davis bricked 12 field goals and scored just eight total points against Pitt. Brutal night for the kid in a letdown loss for Carolina.

After the game, UNC head coach Hubert Davis was asked about RJ’s uncharacteristically poor night shooting the ball. Here’s what he had to say:

“I don’t know. That’s a great question. I felt like a number of his looks were wide open. Those are shots that over the last two and a half months, and really throughout his career, he’s made. He missed two free throws and he’s statistically the best free throw shooter in the conference. Sometimes you don’t shoot the ball well. I wish it wasn’t tonight, but it was.”

Neither RJ Davis nor Armando Bacot, the team’s two leading scorers, had good games against Pittsburgh. However, the Heels lost by just one point even though two of the main cogs in their offense were abysmal compared to normal.

So, one reporter asked Coach Davis if there is a sort of silver lining to seeing his guys compete to the bitter end even when their leaders are having off nights. Of course, Davis answered that at North Carolina, there are no silver linings in lost games.

“I’m not a silver lining type of person and the reason being is I don’t know what benefit that has to us. Going back home tonight and going through the sequence that you went through, at the end of the day, we lost. We’ve just got to play better.”

They need to play better and in a hurry as UNC heads to Durham for the first installment of the North Carolina-Duke rivalry in a post-Coach-K world. Neither team is lighting it up as of late and both are in need of a quality win over the other to shore up their NCAA Tournament chances. Heels going to need a better version of RJ Davis this weekend.