ACC Tipoff Q&A: Hubert Davis, Seth Trimble and Henri Veesaar at the Podium

CHARLOTTE, N.C.  — North Carolina coach Hubert Davis and players Seth Trimble and Henri Veesaar made the rounds Tuesday at the ACC Tipoff preseason basketball event.

UNC underwent full roster reconstruction this offseason, following a turbulent year in which the Tar Heels tumbled from a preseason top-10 ranking to becoming the last team in the NCAA Tournament field. Veesaar is part of a host of newcomers to Carolina’s remade roster — in the form of six transfer additions, one international import and three freshmen. The Tar Heels open the new season on Nov. 3 against Central Arkansas at the Smith Center.

Read and watch what Davis, Trimble and Veesaar had to say from the ACC Tipoff podium on Tuesday …

Opening Statement

HUBERT DAVIS: “Just a real honor and a privilege to be here with you guys for the next 10, 15 minutes, but also being alongside Henri and Seth. Just a joy to coach and really excited about this upcoming season.”

Player development has always been a thing for North Carolina. How are you developing some of the players, your new players, and some of your senior players?

DAVIS: “Well, player development, there’s a number of things at the top of the list, and player development is one of them. In order for our team to be good, each individual player has to be good. One of the things that I always tell the guys as a coach, filter through comes from two things. One, obviously my personality, and, two, my experience as a player. One of the things in terms of individual development that we speak about at great length every day is for our guys to be basketball players. I know that sounds simple, but for our guys to check a number of different boxes on both ends of the floor, not one-dimensional. What a great example of Seth and Henri, of guys that can get it done on both ends of the floor and do a number of things on the offensive end, whether it’s around the basket or obviously outside from three-point range.”

Eleven new faces on this team this season. For you, the glue and the cohesiveness, how do you keep a team together when there is so much change in the climate that we live in?

DAVIS: “Yeah, you’re right. There’s 11 new guys, and one of the things that I think is huge in college is to support the same as when I was in school. When the season was over you weren’t allowed to have those opportunities with your coach until October 15th, and that’s absolutely a different case now. The 11 new guys, plus returners, like Seth, we’ve been on the floor for eight months, during the summer, individual workouts, team practices, team getaways, functions. We spent a ton of time with each other on and off the court. I always tell the guys that in order to play for me you have to know me and I have to know you, and the only way that we get to know each other is to spend a lot of time together. I’m thankful that we’ve had that time in the summer and in the fall heading into the season where we have a clear understanding of who we are on and off the court that allows us to be the best that we can be on the court.” 

The importance of size was a focus this offseason. How are the bigs coming along so far, and how valuable is it to get Zayden (High) back on the roster?

DAVIS: One of the things that heading into this season or in the offseason that we wanted to improve on, obviously as you mentioned, our size. But the thing that would take it a step further was not just size in the front court, but positional size. We’ve got really big guards. Seth is big, and Jonathan Powell is 6-foot-6; Luka Bogavac is 6-foot-6. And so we’ve got positional size. It allows us to do a number of things versatility-wise on both ends of the floor. I’ve always believed and always will believe that rebounding is the number one determining factor of the outcome of the game at both ends of the floor, and from an offensive rebounding standpoint, that’s an area that needed much improvement this year compared to last.

Luka is an international star. Everybody has been wanting to see him on the court. What does he bring to your team, and what are you doing to try to make sure he’s cleared to play to start the season?

DAVIS: “Well, he does a number of different things out there on the floor. I mentioned him in regards to positional size from the guard position. He’s a guy from an offensive standpoint that can make plays with the ball in his hands, whether coming off ball screens, DHOs, stuff like that. But also just equally effective at coming off screens, whether it’s flares or staggers or wide pins. He’s older, more experienced, and his personality is just that he’s a competitor. Whether it’s just a pick-up game or we’re scrimmaging or just an individual drill, he’s someone that competes on every possession.” 

Seth, how effective has the defense been in your opinion so far this season?

SETH TRIMBLE: “Super effective. Henri and I the other day were actually talking about, like, how good it was or what we just weren’t able to get on the offensive end, but we really came to the conclusion that our defense has been really effective all summer long, but especially this preseason. We’re coming along together. We’re starting to talk more. We’re starting to really just dive in on what our coaches are continuing to teach us. I think everybody is on the same page now and it’s going a long way.”

With you being a senior guard for the Tar Heels, you are one of the leaders of the squad. What is something you do being one of the leaders of the Tar Heels to keep the team intact and be successful? And what’s a part of your game that a lot of people don’t give you credit for that annoys you?

TRIMBLE: “I think the biggest thing is continuing to preach on the foundations that our coaches teach us on the traditions here at North Carolina. Just about all that, continuing to remind everybody how important it is to wear this jersey and how important it is to play for each other and how important it is just to represent the history that’s come through here. I think that gives us enough motivation as it is and plays a huge part in our will and want to play basketball. 

“About what others don’t know about me, I don’t really know. I couldn’t really tell you. In the last couple of years it’s been a huge goal of mine to, sorry, but ignore you guys and ignore everybody else. I think I’ve done a really good job of doing it. I’m just going to continue to play basketball and do what he asks me to do.”

You’ve been on this team for a while. You’ve seen a lot of change in your time here at North Carolina. You’re one of the more senior guys on this team now. What are you doing as a locker room leader to help push this team and get it back to where North Carolina has always been historically?

TRIMBLE: “Like I spoke on the foundation, if we can continue to emphasize that and preach that, then like I said earlier, that can go a long way. Just continue to be a huge voice for guys. I’m the one who has been here for four years. I’m the one who has been on a North Carolina team who has failed to meet any expectations, and I’m the one who has been on a North Carolina team that has been on a team that’s amazing. 

“My sophomore year. I’ve been through it all here, even individually. I’ve been a guy that played zero to four minutes and I’ve been a guy that played 38 minutes. I mean, I’ve been in a lot of positions here, and I’m really just trying to use that to just continue to share with my teammates, because that experience — if they can go on with that experience before the season even starts and before they go through it on their own, that can really help them.”

Seth, part of good culture is having fun. We saw you do that on stage here with your coach. What’s it like being around him on and off the court? What’s it like having a coach like Hubert Davis?

TRIMBLE: “It’s super cool. It’s a blessing, because it’s not every program, it’s not every place, it’s not every level where you have a coach who truly cares for you, not just on the court, but off the court. We can go to H.D. about anything. We could go tell him some boring life story, and he’s fully invested in it. We can go tell him about who we just met or whatever it is. We can go and have that relationship with him and build that from there. I mean, it’s amazing, because once it gets on the court and we know we’ve built that off the court, I know he knows me, I know him. There’s even more trust there on the court, so it makes it even easier.”

Commissioner Phillips talked about this morning earlier how his goal is to get the ACC back to where he wants to be. As far as you as well as your team, where do you stand in that? What is your role in getting the ACC to the place that they want to be?

HENRI VEESAAR: “I think our role as a team is just to win as many games and put the ACC on the biggest platform possible. When with play, for example, the SEC and ACC games, just win those games.”

Coming from Arizona, how much different is basketball out there compared to what you have seen basketball out here?

VEESAAR: “I would say it’s quite different; definitely seeing the game change and the way that the team is. I think the biggest difference is really just seeing the connectivity of the team here and seeing how the coaches really are every day like hands-on off the court, no matter where. It’s like the team meetings and all that.”

Being at what’s called a blue blood when we look at college basketball to wear that jersey, to be at North Carolina, be a Tar Heel and to come over from Arizona, hindsight 20/20, why was it the right decision, and what can you say about being a member of a blue blood?

VEESAAR: “I’m just feeling the love of the community and seeing what the school really means to the whole community of Chapel Hill and everywhere in North Carolina. Knowing that you play for so much more than just yourself. Like the players that paved the way for, you seeing everybody come back during the summer just to talk to us, the older players who are already retired or still have contracts overseas or are in the NBA. They risk theirs and their body just to play with us. Seeing that it means that much to them to make us better, that just means everything. You know that you got to bring it every day just for them.”