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NEW ORLEANS — There have been many positives for first-year head coach Hubert Davis as Carolina turned its season around and went from the bubble to the Final Four. One big one is that he can be a basketball coach, rather than a sports psychologist trying to figure out how to be an effort coach. His days of preaching “energy, effort and toughness” are over because his players are bringing all three to every game.
NEW ORLEANS — If you call Carolina soft, Armando Bacot is going to go hard against you. Sportswriter Jeff Goodman discovered that Thursday during a Final Four press conference at the Superdome ahead of the Tar Heels’ Final Four matchup on Saturday against Duke (TBS). After the Tar Heels’ home loss to Pittsburgh, Goodman went off on them during his “Field of 68” podcast. Among other criticisms, he called them soft. Goodman wasn’t alone and coach Hubert Davis acknowledged later in the press conference that the description was accurate earlier in the season.
When you match Carolina and Duke in a national semifinal, ticket demand and the prices on the secondary markets are going to soar. Getting Final Four tickets through UNC this time has been the most challenging in years for many Rams Club members who have regularly traveled to cheer on the Tar Heels. Rams Club member Jimi Harrison of Chapel Hill, a 1978 Carolina graduate, has never seen anything like it.
If you can’t make it to New Orleans for the Final Four, you can still show your support for the Tar Heels team by being part of a sendoff on Wednesday and joining a watch party at the Smith Center. When Carolina leaves for RDU Airport at about 4:45 Wednesday afternoon, fans are invited to line up on either side of Lettermen’s Lane, which is between the Smith Center and the Woody Durham Media and Communications Center.
The Hall of Fame coach who prevented a UNC-Duke battle in the 1991 Final Four remembers the crazy way that game finished and the unfortunate exit of another Hall of Fame coach. During an interview Tuesday morning on the ACC Network’s “Packer and Durham,” Williams also talked about how happy Carolina’s 69–49 East Regional final victory Sunday in Philadelphia over Saint Peter’s made him.
PHILADELPHIA — Moments after Hubert Davis greeted the last Saint Peter’s player in the handshake line, all that had transpired since he took over as Carolina’s head coach last spring brought a flood of emotions.
He tearfully broke down, overwhelmed that he had navigated the program through a historic transition from a Hall of Fame coach and that his first team had earned the program’s NCAA-record 21st Final Four berth.
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