CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina coach Hubert Davis joined Jones Angell on 97.9 FM for the weekly coach's radio show on Monday night, live from Top of the Hill Restaurant.
After coming up winless in two games last week on the West Coast, Davis provided his thoughts on the 95-90 Stanford loss, explained why UNC started slowly in the 84-78 defeat at California and discussed where the team goes from here.
Ahead of the Tar Heels' trip to California, it was fresh off an 87-84 win over Wake Forest. However, the victory wasn't the main storyline following the game. Instead, it was UNC's 15-point lead with 9:50 to play, which was cut to just one less than six minutes later.
Then, on Wednesday against Stanford, the Tar Heels led by 12 points in the first half before allowing the Cardinal to storm back. Early in the second half, UNC built another 12-point lead. But with under a minute left, Stanford took the lead and pulled away with a 95-90 win behind 16 3-pointers.
Davis admitted he felt some déjà vu, with the final score the key difference.
"The Stanford game reminded me very (much) of the Wake Forest game," Davis said. "The only difference is we lost. We led for 38 minutes of the game, we were up 12 a number of times and we had a two-minute stretch that ended up getting us a loss."
The next morning, UNC took the one-hour bus ride north to Berkeley, where the Tar Heels spent two days before their next game.
On Thursday, Davis took the team to the New York Knicks versus Golden State Warriors game at the Chase Center. It was the second time Davis took the Tar Heels to an NBA game this season after they watched the Atlanta Hawks play the San Antonio Spurs the night before UNC beat Ohio State.
"One of the things I took from it, and I told the team, is the way that they move the basketball from an offensive standpoint is (a) point five mentality," he said. "As soon as it touches your hands, they were driving it, they were passing it, they were shooting it. They weren't dribbling it, they weren't holding it and just the ball movement is elite."
It didn't make a noticeable difference, though, for the Tar Heels in their first half against California on Saturday. UNC allowed 54 first-half points to the Golden Bears, who shot 10-for-16 from deep (62.5%) and 55.9% from the field, as Cal held a 17-point lead at the intermission.
Davis thinks it was a proverbial hangover from three days prior.
"I really believe against Cal we were, for the first half, shook from the game against Stanford," Davis said. "By the time that we woke up, we were down 18 or 20 and we started to play better and started to play the way that I know we can play."
About twelve minutes later, during his radio show from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., Davis shared a similar sentiment.
"I really believe that (in) the first half, we were still shook from what happened against Stanford….," he said. "I really feel like that first half, we weren't awake."
The Tar Heels, like Davis alluded to, came alive in the second half. UNC forged a 20-5 run down the stretch and even pulled within three points with under a minute left.
But it was too little too late, as the first half proved to be insurmountable.
On Monday, Davis said UNC had a really good, spirited practice.
"Being able to put those things together and put it on tape for them to watch it today, I thought it was good for them," Davis said regarding stringing together multiple good possessions. "I thought we took a step forward today."
Davis summed up UNC's three losses in its last four games as adversity that this team must overcome.
"It would be great to go undefeated, having perfect practices and no turnovers, no injuries and no delays in travel, but that kind of stuff just doesn't happen," Davis said. "So, I always tell the players the two things you have control over are how you react and how you respond. I was not happy with how we reacted and responded against Stanford and Cal."
"We have 11 new guys on this team, and this is the first time that this group has had to kind of figure it out. And that's really good. There are going to be bumps in the road, there's going to be traffic, there's going to be speed bumps, and you've got to figure out how to smooth those things out and the areas you have to get better at."
UNC's first chance to correct itself will be on Wednesday, when the Tar Heels host Notre Dame at the Smith Center. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. on ESPN2.