Hubert Davis shares message to Caleb Love amid poor shooting stretch

The North Carolina basketball team has won eight of its last 10 games since finally breaking out of a four-game losing skid that ended the month of November and carried into the start of December. And the Tar Heels have done it despite a poor shooting stretch for Caleb Love, the team’s second-leading scorer.

Love has hit just two of his last 18 shots from 3-point range. He’s on a poor enough stretch that coach Hubert Davis has had a frank conversation with him.

“I talked to him yesterday and I told him that… I talked to him through my own experience,” Davis said. “I told him one time in the NBA I struggled shooting the ball for an entire month. I said I always felt like if I was going to miss 10 I was going to make the next 10.”

How did Davis snap himself out of those skids? First, he started picking apart what was happening.

Then he worked on the things he could control.

“One of the things that I always did was I went through a checklist,” Davis explained. “One of the things that I looked at was was there anything wrong in terms of fundamentally with my shot. I told him that sometimes, at times my elbow would come out a little too much, or my guide hand thumb would be on the ball a little too much.

“I said, ‘looking at your shot when you were shooting the last couple days,’ I just said, ‘To me it seems just a smidge flat. Just a little bit.’ So I said, ‘Just think about getting a little bit more arc on there.'”

Tar Heels winning despite Caleb Love’s poor shooting stretch

Caleb Love’s poor shooting stretch really extends back to the Jumpman Invitational, when North Carolina topped Ohio State in overtime.

Since that contest, Love is just 11-of-47 (23.4%) from beyond the arc.

The Tar Heels would love to get him going again. But Davis definitely doesn’t want that to become Love’s primary focus.

“I told him about the importance of continuing to shoot and continuing to shoot good shots,” Davis said. “And then I told him about making impact plays in different areas. When I struggled to shoot the ball, I thought more about let me get some extra rebounds, make some more hustle plays, take my mind off of, ‘Ooh I’ve got the ball, I’ve got to make this shot.’ It just puts you in a position to get out of whatever lack of rhythm that you have on the shooting end.

“I just told him that I’m proud of him and just continue to play. So we had that discussion yesterday.”

North Carolina will be back in action on Saturday with a 5 p.m. ET tip at home against NC State. The game will be carried on the ACC Network.