Old North News

First-year head basketball coach Hubert Davis humbly attributes his surprising success with the University of North Carolina Tar Heels to his mentor, former head coach Roy Williams.

"I'm not sitting up here right now without Coach Williams," Davis said in a Sunday 247sports.com report, shortly after Carolina brought an end to the Cinderella run for St. Peter's, 69-49. "He gave me a chance and an opportunity to be the next head coach, to lead this program, to be a part of this team. And it's very important that we give everything to the players."

Davis learned from some of the best that college basketball has to offer, playing under coach Dean Smith and learning the coaching trade from Williams. Davis wants his coaching to be recognizable to former players, but he adds a little of himself into the mix to make his style his own.

"It's really important for me that this program, with my own personality in my own shoes, looks exactly like the program that Coach Smith, Coach (Bill) Guthridge and Coach Williams ran," Davis told 247sports.com. "I want them—whether it's in person, TV, highlights—I want them to be able to identify and go, 'That's the Carolina I went to.'" 

After an early exit in last year's NCAA Men's Division I basketball tournament, commonly known as March Madness, Williams stepped down and turned the helm over to Davis. It was a move some fans didn't like, if social media reports are to be taken seriously. 

"It's been a roller coaster the past few years, been laughed at on social media," player Leaky Black said in the report, referring to last year's disappointment. "It feels good to get the last laugh right here, but we're not done yet."

Indeed, sports commentators had North Carolina's bid into the field of 68 as iffy until the final game of the regular season when the Heels got even with Duke University, paying the Blue Devils back for a loss earlier this season.

As the Heels face Duke in a Final Four rematch Saturday in New Orleans—a game that is getting much hype as it will showcase one of college basketball's top rivalries—the team is playing what is arguably some of its best hoops of the season.

"It's unbelievable," UNC's Brady Manek said in the report. "I actually just got done talking with Ms. Davis about how a kid from Oklahoma ends up in North Carolina and somehow has a fifth year. That's unbelievable. It's been an unbelievable story so far and it's not over yet."