This picture of EC celebrating RJ is priceless: Login to view embedded media

They just beat Wakeforest, I do believe that they have won four out of 5 coming down the stretch. I like there coach and he has some really good young players that will be making some noise for the next couple of years. If we don't come out focused and ready to go against them they can very easily beat us it's time to get back to playing with a sense of urgency for its going g to be if we loose a game in two weeks or season is over.im really hoping that were focused and ready to roll Saturday against State ,because Kansas just got beat at home so we better get it together or we will be watching someone else cutting down the nets. Let's go Heels. 💙👣🐏🏀 We have a maximum of 12 games left and I'd love very much for us to win them all.💙👣🐏🏀💙👣🐏🏀

We just finished our annual sales conference in Greensboro and Doherty was our keynote speaker. I know a lot of people will say he embarrassed the school and ran us into the ground. He was obviously in over his head but I don’t dislike the man because of those 3 years. He said in his talk that the 2 darkest days of his life was when he didn’t make it in the NBA and when UNC asked him to resign.

He had some bad luck with May getting hurt but he also won the regular season title his first year and he recruited the core to cut down the nets in 2005.

Pretty cool to hear him yesterday and he is and always will be a Tarheel!

CAROLINA 75, MIAMI 71
FEBRUARY 26, 2024
ROY WILLIAMS COURT AT THE DEAN E. SMITH CENTER
CHAPEL HILL

UNC Scoring Leader: RJ Davis career-high 42
UNC Rebound Leader: Armando Bacot 12
UNC Assist Leader: Elliot Cadeau 5
Team Records: Carolina 22-6, 14-3 ACC; Miami 15-14, 6-12 ACC

• Carolina in 14-3 in ACC play for the first time since the league went to 20 regular-season games in 2019-20.
• The Tar Heels are 12-1 at home this season with games remaining against NC State and Notre Dame.
• Carolina shot 57.1% from the free throw line (12 of 21), its second-worst performance from the stripe this season.
• Carolina outrebounded the Canes, 38-35, the 17th consecutive game UNC had more rebounds than the opponents.
• Miami scored 21 points off turnovers, the third time in the last five games an opponent scored 20 or more points off UNC turnovers.

• Carolina outscored Miami, 16-3, in second-chance points, including two free throws by Jae’Lyn Withers with two seconds to play after he got an offensive rebound after a Tar Heel missed free throw. Withers’ free throws made it a two-possession game.
• Miami made 14 of 30 three-pointers. The 14 threes are the most by an opponent this season (most since Alabama made 16 in a four-OT game last season).
• Miami’s 14 threes are the most by an opponent in a UNC win since Louisville made 15 on 2/1/2022.
• Carolina held Miami to 39.3% from the floor (the Canes were 10 for 31 on two-point attempts). UNC is 11-2 this year when holding the opponents below 40% from the floor.

• RJ Davis made a career-high seven three-pointers and scored a career-high 42 points. He was 14 for 22 from the floor, including 7 of 11 from three, was 7 for 9 from the free throw line, had six rebounds, four steals and one assist.
• He joins Bobby Lewis (twice), Billy Cunningham (twice), Lennie Rosenbluth (five times), George Glamack, Charlie Scott (three times), Shammond Williams, Kenny Smith, Harrison Barnes and Tyler Hansbrough as the only Tar Heels to score 40 or more in a game.
• The 42 points are the record for any college basketball game in Smith Center history (it was UNC’s 562nd regular-season or post-season game in the Smith Center). The previous Smith Center record was 40 by Tyler Hansbrough vs. Georgia Tech on 2/15/2006.
• It equals the third-most points by a Tar Heel in a regular-season ACC game (most since Shammond Williams had 42 in a double-OT win at Georgia Tech on 2/8/1998).
• It is the most points by a Tar Heel in any game since Williams’ 42 at Georgia Tech in 1998.

• It was Davis’ 18th 20-point game this season (30th career), his ninth this season with 25 or more (13th career), third this season with 30 or more (fourth career) and first with 40 or more.
• Davis is the first Tar Heel with three 30-point games in a season since Coby White in 2018-19.
• Davis scored 21 points in each half. It was the most first-half points by a Tar Heel since Caleb Love had 21 vs. Marquette in the 2022 NCAA first round and the most second-half points since Davis scored 23 vs. Wake Forest on 1/22/2024.
• It was the third and fourth times this season Davis scored 20 points in a half (23 in the second vs. Wake Forest and 21 in the second vs. Arkansas).
• Davis did not score in the first half at Virginia on Saturday and finished the game 1 for 14 from the floor.

• Davis outscored the rest of the Tar Heels, 42-33. He outscored the rest of the team, 21-16, in the first half and 21-17 in the second.
• It was the second game in a row a Tar Heel outscored the rest of the team in the first half. Saturday at Virginia, Cormac Ryan had 15 of UNC’s 26 in the first half.
• Davis grabbed his 500th career rebound. He is the first Tar Heel with at least 1,900 points, 500 rebounds, 300 assists and 200 three-pointers.
• Davis tied Brad Daugherty for 10th in UNC history with 1,912 points.

• Davis’ seven three-pointers are the most by a Tar Heel since Cole Anthony made seven at Syracuse on 2/29/2020.
• Davis scored 56% of UNC’s 75 points. It was the highest percentage of UNC points by one player since George Glamack scored 45 of UNC’s 76 points against Clemson on 2/10/1941. Glamack scored 59.2% of UNC’s points in that game.
• Davis scored 34 more points than any other Tar Heel, the largest margin from the top scorer to the next in UNC history. Lennie Rosenbluth (45) scored 33 more points than Pete Brennan (12) in UNC’s ACC Tournament win over Clemson 3/7/1957.
• It was the first time the Tar Heels won when only one player scored in double figures since 1/8/2011 when Tyler Zeller scored 12 points in a 62-56 win at Virginia.

• The 42 points are the most by an ACC player since Boston College’s Ky Bowman scored 44 against Hartford on 12/31/2018.
• The 42 points are the most in an ACC game since BC’s Jerome Robinson scored 46 in a loss at Notre Dame on 2/6/2018.
• The 42 points are the most by a Tar Heel vs. Miami (Hansbrough had 35 on 1/23/2008).
• It was the 20th time a Tar Heel made seven or more threes in any game. The record is eight by six different players.
• Armando Bacot had a game-high 12 rebounds. He has 1,628 career rebounds, passing Louisville’s Charlie Tyra (1,617) for 11th in NCAA history.

• Harrison Ingram had 10 rebounds (12th time in double figures in the last 16 games) and made a career-high five steals (had made four this season against Oklahoma and Duke).
• Elliot Cadeau had a game-high five assists. It was the fourth time in the last five games he had at least five assists. Cadeau has 32 in the last five games.
• It was Hubert Davis’ 100th game as UNC’s head coach. The Tar Heels are 71-29. He has the fourth-most wins of any UNC coach in his first 100 games.

UNC-Miami
• Carolina is 28-10 all-time vs. Miami, including 21-9 since the Canes joined the ACC, and 13-5 in Chapel Hill (all in the Smith Center).

Next Game: vs. NC State, Saturday, March 2 (4 p.m., ESPN)

Props to RJ for his work in the classroom! History as a minor on top of his major - that makes for a tough course load for any student let alone a MBB team member (and star).

ACC Post-grad scholarships

I'm going to be out of the country from 2/29-3/17. Anyone know of an easy way to watch UNC basketball? It seems to have been easy in some countries in the past, but not so much in others.

Okay, Chelsea, Bryant and I are here. Kevin is not, something happened with his wife at work and he returned to Fayetteville. Please keep them in your prayers.

New Rivals250: https://n.rivals.com/prospect_rankings/rivals250/2025
The Five-Star Countdown: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-five-star-countdown-55
New 5-stars breakdown: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-meet-the-four-new-five-stars-4
Rivals250 biggest risers: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-ten-biggest-risers-in-the-rivals250-20
Position-by-position look at new Rivals250: https://n.rivals.com/news/tuesdays-with-gorney-new-2025-rivals250-released-4

Discussion
Saturday it was Ryan showing up to save the team from a bad team effort, and tonight it was RJ Davis, who set a Smith Center scoring record with his 42 point effort. Davis scored 56% of the teams points in an almost average scoring night. Simply incredible!

The rest of the team struggled with 33% shooting form the field and 13% from behind the arc against a team without two of its starters. While it is great that we have multiple players who can rise up and carry the team, it is not comforting from a long term standpoint, to be certain.

UNC scored 0.91 points per possession while allowing Miami to score 0.88. The only stat that really stands out from a team perspective is Miami's 47% 3-point shooting. UNC did force Miami into 17% loss of ball, a better-than average defensive night for this team.

Next up is a hungry, disorganized NCSU team. Like their football team, they tend to play better away from the spotlight, and have improved considerably since the first meeting of these two teams.

I acquired all of the Division I team data since 2002, and from that we can observe some fascinating trends and data relationships in the data. This is a multipart series exploring some of that data.

So far I've covered offense and rebounding. Now we'll dive into the defensive stats.



The graph shows the Defensive Field Goal Percentage (fg%), by year, for the last 23 seasons, through the morning of February 26, 2024. The grey line shows the fg% for all of Division I, while the green line shows the fg% for teams that made the NCAA tournament that year. Over time the national average has held exclusively between 43% and 44%.

As with many other stats, the performance difference between tournament teams and the national average has remained steady, about 1.5-2.0 percentage points below the national average.

UNC, shown in blue, has been inconsistent, but as hovered around the tournament average line most years. This year's team, though, looks like it might push opponents below the tournament average by as much as the 2012 team did. That's certainly a good sign heading into March.

How important is this statistic? It's one of the biggies. Its correlation factor with Winning Percentage is an impressive -0.607, second only to Offensive field Goal Percentage. Points Per Possession (Smith or Modern) are better estimators of success, but as far as box score stats go, these are the two that deserve the most focus.

Next up: Opponent Shooting Breakdown