Live Action With Hubert Davis & UNC’s off-season

CHAPEL HILL – NC: Well folks, It’s that time of year again, 41 days until basketball season starts. 

UNC will be kicking off its basketball season with Live Action With Hubert Davis. And some big-time recruits will be in town, including 2024 5* Boogie Fland, and 2023 4* Zayden High. But that list is subject to change, only because we are waiting to hear if 2024 5* Jarin Stevenson (offered) or 2024 4* Drake Powell (committed) will be in town also.

With that being said, let’s talk about North Carolina’s tremendous off-season.

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It doesn’t seem like it, but, the National Championship game (I’m still hurting because of that game) was only 5 months ago. So with basketball season around the corner, let’s take a look at UNC’s tremendous off-season.

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Things were quiet for the first 2 weeks after the UNC Vs Kansas game, which was expected. but boy did things heat up quickly. After Brady, Kerwin and Ant left for the transfer portal, And Brady went to the NBA tryouts, the big 4 of the team (RJ, Caleb, Leaky, and Mando) started to go under a lot of pressure from the media to stay at UNC. Fortunately, Mando was the first to announce his return to UNC for his senior season via a video ( https://youtube.com/shorts/z–7c9xf9rE?feature=share ). Not only is Armando the pre-season ACC POY, but he’s also one of the 3 front runners for NPOY, the other 2 being Drew Timme out of Gonzaga and Oscbar Tshibwe out of Kentucky (reigning NPOY). He avered 16 & 12 this past season. He has also been seen in several pick-up games shooting the 3. If he is able to develop a 3-point shot, then he will be the best player in the nation.

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Not too long after that, 5-year veteran Leaky Black announced his return via video while reading a letter that he wrote for himself. Leaky may not be an offensive machine, but, he will lock you down when he feels like it. He’s been working on his long-range over the summer, which was an area he improved on last year. If he can get that going, he’ll easily be on the first team All-ACC. He was also on the defensive first team, and almost won the ACC-DPOY, but the committee thought former Duke 7-footer Mark Williams was the better choice (lol).

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The 3rd person to return was RJ Davis, probably the most important piece to the puzzle, he’s our PG, some may argue that it’s Caleb, but RJ runs the floor better than Caleb does in my opinion. We saw something in RJ last year that we didn’t see in his Freshman year, and that is attacking the basket. RJ is starting to look like Joel Berry 2.0. RJ did not care how big you were, driving in on guys that were anywhere from 6’7 to 7’1, And scored most of the time. That’s impressive for a guy that is 5’11 175lbs. His ability to shoot, run the floor, and handle the ball so well is what has caught a bunch of scouts’ eyes. 

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And the last person that announced their return was Caleb Love, the one who everybody was waiting on. Caleb is an excellent player, his only issue is his inconsistency. That showed throughout the tournament, and the perfect example is the first 2 games, he had 23 against Marquette in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and 5 against Baylor where he fouled out with 9 minutes left to go in the 2nd half. He had 30 against UCLA, and 28 against Duke, thats the game where he made what is called by some the greatest shot in basketball history.

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In Mid-June, the Freshman arrived on campus. Those Freshmen include Seth Trimble, Jalen Washington, and Tyler Nickel. The reason that Will Shaver is not on this list is that he enrolled early in January. And then of course the 5th year 6’10 225 lbs transfer from Northwestern University Pete Nance arrived on campus 3 months ago and had a promising performance in the Blue Vs. White game on the same day as the UNC Vs. FAMU football game.

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Now UNC is #1 on everybody’s pre-season rankings, and Hubert Davis has made it clear that he does not want the guys to take that and let their guard down. Being too cocky and overlooking your opponent can get you kicked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round just like Kentucky losing to St. peters.

Enough writing for the day.

GO HEELS

Tar.Heel.Zone