{"id":128549,"date":"2025-09-03T01:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T01:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/128549\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T01:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T01:27:11","slug":"unc-basketball-update-ahead-of-the-preseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/128549\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC Basketball Update Ahead of the Preseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. \u2014 With preseason practices set to begin in full in three weeks, North Carolina men\u2019s basketball coach Hubert Davis<\/a> met with local reporters on Tuesday afternoon for his first group interview availability since the Tar Heels lost to Ole Miss in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

>>>\u00a0Welcome to the new home of Inside Carolina!\u00a0Reactivate your account for $1<\/a>\u00a0<<<<\/p>\n

Davis, entering his fifth season as head coach of his alma mater, mainly spoke about UNC\u2019s reworked roster, which includes six transfer portal additions and four freshmen.<\/p>\n

Watch the full video here and scroll down for excerpts from Davis\u2019s question-and-answer session at the Smith Center.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s your take on Luka Bogavac so far as a player from what you\u2019ve seen? And could you take us through the process of identifying him, recruiting him, and how you were able to land him?<\/p>\n

Davis: \u201cHe\u2019s been great getting to know and also coaching him. He\u2019s been fantastic in the classroom and also on the court. As a player, he\u2019s somebody who can do a number of different things on both ends of the floor. He\u2019s got great size, can handle it, and make plays with the ball in his hand. Can shoot, score on many different levels, mid-range, get to the bucket, excellent passer, and somebody who had a burning desire to be here and to be a part of this program. And as soon as he walks into a room, it just brightens up. He just has that type of personality I\u2019ve really enjoyed being around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: When you were building this roster, what was on the checklist for what you wanted to accomplish? And how do you feel about where you are going into preseason?<\/p>\n

Davis: \u201cA couple of things, I thought we needed to be bigger in positional size. We needed more size. I think the number one determining factor of an outcome of the game is rebounding. I thought defensively we were okay \u2014 rebounding percentage-wise, but offensive rebounding was nowhere near where we needed to be. I wanted to become more versatile. You have different types of lineups, and I feel like with this roster, we\u2019ve been able to identify both of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: Can you explain your approach to the transfer portal this time around with a GM in Jim Tanner for the first time?<\/p>\n

Davis: \u201cIn regard to the transfer portal, the two boxes that need to be checked is: a want and a need. Obviously, you know, Jim is a part of our team and a part of our program, and I\u2019m really thankful that he\u2019s here. We were friends prior to him becoming the general manager; we work extremely well together\u2026 He just has a burning desire for this program and this university to be successful, and so we work extremely well together, and just like all of us on the staff, he wants us to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: What are you most excited about with Caleb Wilson?<\/p>\n

Davis: \u201cFrom a basketball standpoint, I think you guys know he\u2019s just uber-talented. I mean, his length and his athleticism, he can handle the basketball at that size, finish around the rim, shoot mid-range. Defensively, he can do a number of different things. As much as I can talk about how impressed I am of him on the court, I\u2019m even more impressed of him as a kid and a teammate. Everything that he talks about is never about him. And I mean that, like everything that he talks about is about the team, and it\u2019s about North Carolina, everything. For someone highly ranked coming in here to not only talk about it, but only really be concerned about the welfare and the benefit of the team, is something that is rare, and it\u2019s something that I really enjoy and love being around every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: With four seasons as the head coach of Carolina basketball in the books, what are your biggest takeaways from those four seasons? And how do you feel going into Year 5 compared to that first stretch?<\/p>\n

Davis: \u201cI feel the same way that I have felt the last four years. There is a pressure and expectation for us to be good this year, but that pressure and that expectation for us to be good is no different than any other year. The standard is at the highest here, and I always talk to the guys that the standard is the standard. And there\u2019s an expectation every year for us to reach that standard. You talked about the last four years, and I actually had a conversation with (team spokesman Steve Kirschner) last week, that there\u2019s a pressure and expectation to be good this year. But also, in some sense, to keep it there, if that makes sense. The first year, we were a rebound away from winning the national championship, but the next year, we win 20 games and we don\u2019t make it to the NCAA Tournament. And then the third year, we\u2019re a top-five team pretty much the whole season, No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and won the (ACC) regular-season title. Then last year, we won 23 games and just made the NCAA Tournament. And so there is a determination to get there and to stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPEL HILL, N.C. \u2014 With preseason practices set to begin in full in three weeks, North Carolina men\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-128549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}