RJ Davis can find some comfort in knowing he’s been through a similar situation before.
Nearly three years ago, his North Carolina team wasn’t sure if it would make the NCAA Tournament as they prepared to face rival Duke on the occasion of Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement.
In a surprise, the Tar Heels won, and that victory propelled them on a surprising run to the NCAA title game, including another win over the Blue Devils in the Final Four, which ended Coach K’s career.
Now, as Davis enters his fifth and final year, the Tar Heels are hoping for a similar boost from Saturday’s game against Duke. The second-ranked Blue Devils are playing well and are considered a favorite for the NCAA title, while the Tar Heels are uncertain about making the 68-team field.
“Going into that game in 2022, our backs were against the wall, people didn’t really believe in us, but we believed in ourselves,” Davis said. “And that’s what got us over the hump, that’s what allowed us to make that run. And that’s the same way of how I feel about this team right now.”
But the Tar Heels (13-9, 6-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) need to pick up their pace quickly.
They started the year ranked No. 9 in the AP Top 25 poll with Davis as the only returning first-team Associated Press All-American. However, by mid-December, they were unranked after losses to several top teams, including No. 1 Auburn, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Florida, No. 7 Michigan State, and No. 11 Kansas.
While they’ve had some strong performances, they’ve failed to keep it up. They’ve lost three of their last four games, including one-point losses to Stanford and Wake Forest. Their only win during that stretch was an overtime victory at home against a Boston College team with just one conference win.
“I mean, you change one possession in (some) of their games, their record looks a lot different,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “So the respect level we have for them is as high as it can be.”
The Tar Heels are at risk of missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years, following a season in which they won the ACC regular-season title and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
“I think the challenge in that is to face this challenge with positivity,” RJ Davis said. “I think that’s how my approach is going to be with this team. Yes, we’ve lost three out of the four. OK, cool, but how are we going to respond?”
The immediate challenge is matching up against the bigger Blue Devils (18-2, 10-0), who have the longest winning streak in the country at 14 games and a national player of the year candidate in freshman Cooper Flagg, who stands 6-foot-9.
One big concern for the Tar Heels is their lack of consistent post play after the departure of five-year big man Armando Bacot. This has left much of the offensive load on an undersized perimeter, with the defense struggling against top big men.
Top scorers Davis (17.6), freshman Ian Jackson (14.7), junior Seth Trimble (12.3), and sophomore point guard Elliot Cadeau (10.7) are all 6-4 or shorter. Meanwhile, Cade Tyson, a 6-7 wing transfer from Belmont, has struggled and barely played.
This puts the Tar Heels at a disadvantage against Duke, where every player in the main rotation stands 6-5 or taller.
“They’re athletic, they’re long, they can cover a lot of space. … They also have the ability to switch everything,” Hubert Davis said. “When teams do that, just like Pitt did us in the second half (Tuesday), your spacing, your ball and player movement has to be on point. You have to find advantages and be able to take advantage of those mismatches.”
There’s a bigger issue for the Tar Heels beyond Saturday’s game. They have a 1-8 record in Quadrant 1 games, which are the most important for their postseason resume. Their only win in Quadrant 1 came against UCLA in New York shortly before Christmas.
The Duke game is the second of four straight games that could be considered Quadrant 1 games, including a Feb. 8 matchup at home against Pittsburgh and a visit to Clemson two days later.
After those, the Tar Heels will play a series of games that could hurt their NCAA chances. They have six games left against teams with an average NET ranking of 145.5, with only Florida State ranked inside the top 100. Their chances to get crucial wins are running out.
According to BracketMatrix, a website that tracks NCAA Tournament projections, the Tar Heels are currently an 11-seed in 48 of 84 mock brackets.
“We trust coach, we trust each other,” Jackson said. “And we believe in the work that we put in. We know what we do, we know what we work on, so just go out there and do it.”
