Hubert Davis speaks about advantage of getting bye week in February

North Carolina‘s bye week has come at the perfect time, according to Tar Heels head coach Hubert Davis.

After defeating Virginia Tech 96-81 over the weekend, they have an entire week to prepare for their next game — a road trip at Virginia. Even with UNC ranked No. 10 in the latest AP Top 25 poll, Davis believes there’s room for improvement within his squad.

“[Having time off] feels good. I think it’s a great time for us to have a week off to catch our breath,” Davis said after the VT win. “I think it’s a great week for us to physically just have a rest.

“But I think it’s also, and this is the most important thing, it’s a week of practice where we can practice and not necessarily prepare. … At the beginning of next week, we can actually have a practice and we can work on things that we need to improve on both ends of the floor and just sharpen the discipline and the details, those little things that allow us to experience big things. So this week is really big for us.”

The Tar Heels will have an entire week to prepare for Virginia, a team that is one game back from UNC’s top spot in the conference. As of this report, the ACC regular season title is a three-team race. North Carolina sits alone at 12-3 in conference play. Duke is 0.5 games back and Virginia is one game back. A win for UVA over North Carolina would shift the entire conference standings just three weeks out from the ACC Tournament.

While Saturday’s big-time conference clash looms, Davis also revealed that he wants to use this time off for his players to work on their physical and mental health.

“You have to find the joy in how hard it is to be successful individually and as a team in middle to late February,” Davis continued. “It’s a long season and it’s nice to have this semi-break to be able to rest physically, mentally, but also work on us as opposed to working on us in preparation to play this particular team. And I think for us, I think that’s really good. And I feel like that’s really good in preparation to play a really good Virginia team.”

The opening tip between UNC and Virginia is scheduled for Saturday at 4 p.m. ET inside John Paul Jones Arena. ESPN will carry the national broadcast.