Hubert Davis on his fiery first-half message to North Carolina: 'We can't even talk about basketball until we join the fight'
Hubert Davis didn’t hold back on how he felt with the start for North Carolina on Saturday against Michigan State. The Tar Heels got off to a sluggish start in the NCAA Tournament second round matchup, falling behind by double digits as the Spartans raced out to a 26-14 lead.
Davis appeared on CBS for a midgame interview with Allie LaForce. Before she could even finish her question, Davis lit into his teams for the lack of fight, calling Michigan State the “tougher” team.
He also gave his team a similar speech on the bench, and it seemed to spark something in them. UNC went on a 20-2 run over the next 10 minutes and took a 40-31 lead into halftime. The Tar Heels kept up the energy on their way to a 85-69 victory to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.
Speaking again with LaForce postgame, Davis addressed his message to the team that led to the turnaround.
“I was pretty fired up,” he said. “I just didn’t really feel the competitive fire to start the game. They were more physical than us. Their will and their want to overpowered us. I said, ‘we can’t even talk about basketball until we join the fight’ at about the 10-minute mark in the first half. Then they started competing and it turned for us.”
Senior guard RJ Davis led North Carolina with 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting. He came up with a clutch play toward the end of the second half, making a big 3-point after the Spartans had come back to cut the lead to four points with 9:18 to go.
RJ Davis also spoke with LaForce postgame, saying the speech from his coach helped the team to wake up and begin playing with more intensity.
“I loved it,” he said. “I think it got us going. Coach Davis does a good job of just bringing the energy out of us. We rely on that and I think we responded well. We was able to cut the lead down in the first half and went on to play our basketball.”
With the win, North Carolina is now 5-0 against Tom Izzo in the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels also got big performances from Armando Bacot (18 points) and Harrison Ingram (five 3-pointers).
UNC advances to face the winner between Alabama and Grand Canyon in the Sweet Sixteen. The Tar Heels are hoping to make it back to the national championship after finishing runner up in 2022, and RJ Davis knows it will take the same intensity Hubert Davis urged North Carolina to play with over the final 30 minutes to get there.
“Just take it one game at a time,” he said. “I know each round every game gets harder. We’ve just got to come prepared mentally and physically and be ready to play our basketball because there’s a lot of great teams out there.”