Defense, Rebounding Boosting UNC's Improved 2025-26 Start

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Nine games into the 2025-26 campaign, North Carolina is off to an 8-1 start, the best of Hubert Davis’ five-year tenure. After last year’s early exit in the Round of 64, the mission for Davis and his staff this offseason was clear: get more size.

And while yes, Caleb Wilson’s malicious slams and Henri Veesaar’s shooting range are welcome sights for fans of modern-day offensive basketball, what deserves even more recognition is just how much better Davis’ squad has been on the defensive end of the floor so far this season. 

“For us to get to where we want to become, we have to be great defensively,” Davis said on Monday night during his first live radio show of the season. “We’ve got length, we’ve got versatility, we’ve got size and I feel like the team is every day understanding more and more how important it is to get after it defensively.”

Through nine games this season, the Tar Heels are surrendering 65 points per game this season, good for third among ACC teams. At this point last season, North Carolina was surrendering a whopping 80 points on average. For an even greater perspective, Davis’ 2023-24 Sweet Sixteen squad was allowing 73.6 points per game through nine games, and the 2021-22 Final Four team allowed 72.

This year’s early defensive improvement is far from happen-stance, as Davis and his staff set objectives for what a productive defense would look like.

“At the beginning of the season we had metrics that we wanted to meet: our field goal percentage defense had to be below 40 (percent)… and we wanted to be a plus-ten rebounding advantage,” Davis said. 

North Carolina’s opponents so far this year are shooting 36.8 percent from the field and the Tar Heels are out-rebounding their opposition by an average of 9.8, essentially checking both of Davis’ aforementioned boxes. 

However, with 22 regular season games remaining, a whole lot of work is left to be done before any sort of conclusions on this year’s group can be reached. 

“The next thing for us defensively is protecting the paint,” Davis said of what he thinks his team can still improve on defensively. 

Prior to UNC’s matchup with Georgetown on Sunday, the Tar Heels had given up an average of 41.3 points in the paint to their previous three opponents in Kentucky, Michigan State and St. Bonaventure. The troubling trend continued in Sunday’s first half when the Hoyas poured in 22 points in the paint, but an improved defensive effort in the second half held Georgetown to just 10 points in the paint.

It doesn’t take the expertise of the late Dr. James Naismith to know that said growth can be expected when Seth Trimble, the Tar Heels’ best on-ball defender, returns to the lineup for the first time since UNC’s matchup with Kansas on Nov. 7. Until Trimble comes back, the team will seek to continue making strides on the defensive end.

“So there’s obviously room to grow,” Davis said. “But defensively, we’ve played well at the beginning of the season.”