Hubert Davis shares how he kept North Carolina focused during medical emergency

A scary situation came to fruition during Wednesday night’s basketball game between Wake Forest and North Carolina, as the game was put on hold during the second half due to an emergency medical situation regarding a fan in the stands.

Play was stopped and delayed for several minutes with 11:15 remaining in the second half, as the Tar Heels led the Demon Deacons 61-60.

According to Ross Martin of InsideCarolina.com, play was stopped after a police officer was attending to a fan in the stands a few rows up from the court. North Carolina trainer Doug Halverson also checked on the situation.

Per Martin, EMT personnel came to the scene and strapped the female fan into some sort of chair device, and she was talking. The fan was then rolled out on the court and out of the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Play eventually resumed and everything was taken care of, per Cory Alexander, who was announcing the game for the ACC Network. During his postgame press conference, North Carolina coach Hubert Davis explained how he kept the Tar Heels focused during the ordeal.

“We used that time to talk about where we were, I think it was like a one-point game at that time. So we just talked about things that we wanted to get better at defensively. We talked about things, from an offensive standpoint, that we wanted to take advantage of. We talked about different plays that we have run prior to that stoppage that worked for us, and how we wanted to tweak and pivot and alter them, in case if they changed defensively,” explained Davis. “We talked about a number of things, and then the break was so long that we just started having conversations. We had conversations. … Armando taught me a new word, so we were talking about that.

“I was trying to keep them loose. Get them to laugh a little bit. We were laughing in the huddle, and I just felt like they loosened up a little bit. They were ready to go.”

Alas, it all worked out in the end for North Carolina, who outscored the Demon Deacons 51-41 in the second half, ending up victorious by a score of 88-79, moving to 10-5 overall this season.

On3’s Wade Peery contributed to this article.