Hubert Davis warns North Carolina must lean into fundamentals amid success, praise

The North Carolina Tar Heels beat the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday to move their winning streak to five games. It’s a run of success that head coach Hubert Davis is excited by, but one that he knows can’t be taken for granted.

Following the game, Davis issued a warning that North Carolina needs to lean into its fundamentals. Otherwise, the success and praise the Tar Heels are appreciating now could go away in a flash.

“They did close,” Hubert Davis said. “We talked a lot about this this week, that the times where individually and as a team, you experience some success, that those are the times where you have to even dive in deeper to the discipline and details that have allowed you to get to where you are. It’s not a time to take a deep breath.”

Now on a run of success, North Carolina has been receiving praise in recent weeks. Earlier this season, however, the Tar Heels were struggling with consistency. Back then, the team and Davis himself faced plenty of criticism. Still, it’s maintaining focus and fundamentals amid success that Davis believes is harder to do than amid criticism.

“And I told them that noise comes from two different directions. It comes from the direction of criticism, and then it comes from the direction of praise, and that the hardest noise to deal with is the one of praise. You have to stay focused on what is allowed to get you there,” Davis said. “And I wanted to communicate that to them, and I did all week, and I did during that time out and throughout the entire game.”

On the back of their winning streak, North Carolina is tied with SMU for fourth in the ACC standings. With two games remaining, winning the conference in the regular season is out of reach. However, there is still time to improve their seeding for the ACC Tournament and boost their resume for the NCAA Tournament.

Hubert Davis dismisses motives behind North Carolina improvement

The recent run of success by North Carolina has been a major turnaround for the team midseason. However, when asked about his team treating games like they were must-win scenarios, Hubert Davis was dismissive.

“I’ve seen that increased edge, but I don’t think it has anything to do about other than us trying to become the best team that we can possibly become. I don’t think it’s anything outside of that,” Davis said.

“The reason I say that is I haven’t talked to them about anything. It’s about our improvement. The only thing we have control over is how we prepare, how we practice, how we play. If we do that to the best of our ability everything else will take care of itself. So it may be, but I have not communicated that to them at all. Our focus has been on us, and if we take care of us, everything else will take care of itself.”

North Carolina will be back in action on Tuesday with a road game against Virginia Tech.