The North Carolina Tar Heels made staying up late worth it on Monday night and into Tuesday morning.
After falling behind by 21 points, North Carolina mounted a big comeback to stun Dayton and move on in the Maui Invitational. They did it behind a strong performance from Seth Trimble and RJ Davis in the second half. While things looked bleak for a while, UNC was able to orchestrate that second-half comeback with a few runs.
They now advance to the semifinals where the test doesn’t get any easier. Waiting for them is No. 4 Auburn, who came back to beat Iowa State on Monday night.
Before we get there, let’s read what Hubert Davis had to say about UNC’s big win.
On Drake Powell’s defense, big shot in second half
“Drake is gifted athletically. He’s elite defensively on and off the ball. I thought his length, athleticism, and pressure on the ball when we were switching caused them problems. Then also his ability to rebound the basketball. I thought he stepped upped when he got into the game. To be able to have the confidence, to be able to knock down that three in the corner to put us up by one was huge. Really happy and really proud of Drake tonight.”
via Inside Carolina
On message to team at halftime
I’ve said to this group that the growth and the step that this team needs to take is to getting to that level that allowed us to get back into the game, to start the game that way and to stay there. Yes, it gave us and it gave them confidence on what we were able to do on the road at Kansas, to be able to give them an example of there’s a lot of time to be able to come back. It’s not a situation where we have to come back from 21 in two possessions. Just a possession at a time. Actually the first four minutes of the second half, they came to the bench and I told them, they’re not making comeback plays. I said, ‘you’re just not. You’re not getting the rebounds. You’re not getting defensive stops. You’re not getting through screens. You’re not getting loose balls. You’re not taking the ball strong to the hoop. You’re not dunking when you get around the basket. Just not just making those plays.’ I said, ‘if you would change that, this game would flip.’ They were able to do that against a really good Dayton team. I also told them, this isn’t sustainable. You can’t do this every game. It’s just not. That’s going to be one of the major steps with this team. Can they play with the sense of urgency on both ends of the floor? Can they start there and can they stay there for a full 40 minutes?”
via Inside Carolina
On emotions after the comeback
“I find myself everywhere. I’m very proud of how they reacted, how they responded. I’m really happy for them. I love those kids. The way they persevered through adversity out there on the floor out there and was able to turn this around, as I said before, against a very good Dayton team, I’m really proud of them. I really am. I’m also keeping it real with them, as well. There’s areas of consistency and growth that we need to move forward with. Those are things that we’ll talk about. We talked about after the game. Things that we’ll talk about tonight and tomorrow in preparation on playing Auburn.”
via Inside Carolina
On point in first half you needed to settle down?
“Prior to this game, I think somebody told me this, I don’t know, but somebody told me that we were No. 1 in the country in terms of not turning the ball over. Okay, we flipped it in the first half. How many? We had 12 turnovers for 19 points? I don’t know how many. That was uncharacteristic for us. We talk about all the time defense. They shot 51 percent in the first half. We talk about rebounding. They were beating us on the boards. We talk about taking care of the basketball. In the second half, how many turnovers did we have? We had three turnovers. Then we ended up out-rebounding them. We held them from 51% in the first half to 35% in the second half. You check those three boxes, you’re going to be in every game. We were able to do that in the second half.”
via Inside Carolina
On UNC fans in attendance
“Well, they always show up. It doesn’t matter if it’s Maui or Chapel Hill or on the road. Our fans are fantastic. The encouragement they gave our team when we were down and we were coming back, giving us that encouragement really helped. Having that home-court advantage from the crowd is something that we feed off on. I’m very thankful and appreciative of the Carolina fans and the way they have showed up for us here in Maui but also in Chapel Hill and everywhere else.”
via Inside Carolina
This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire : What Hubert Davis said after UNC basketball’s comeback win over Dayton
