Hubert Davis, UNC ready for highly anticipated season: ‘I’m starving. I’m ready to go.’

The UNC basketball season begins in three and a half weeks and the anticipation is building.

Not just because it’s the second season for Hubert Davis and because the Tar Heels went all the way to the National Championship game last season. But, the main core from last year is returning.

North Carolina was three points away and one shot away from sending the National Championship game into overtime — instead, it was a miss by [autotag]Caleb Love[/autotag] and a win for Kansas.

With Love, [autotag]RJ Davis[/autotag], [autotag]Armando Bacot[/autotag] and [autotag]Leaky Black[/autotag] returning for the Tar Heels, UNC is staring at one of the most talented cores and rosters in the country. Adding to that was Northwestern transfer [autotag]Pete Nance[/autotag].

For Hubert Davis, he is ready to get the season started now.

“I’m ready right now,” Davis said at ACC Media Day on Wednesday. “I gave them Proverbs 14:26 at practice yesterday, and it talks about having a hunger and I kept talking to the team. I said, ‘Are you hungry or are you satisfied?’ And I told them that I’m not hungry, I’m starving. I’m ready to go.”

Davis, who has shown his ability to get his roster to rally around each other, had his statement echoed by the leaders on this team.

“It’s more just focusing on this season and how we want to get to the championship this year, we don’t really dwell too much on what happened last year. And I think that’s a great part of four out of five coming back because we get the opportunity to have another crack at it,” Bacot said.

“We just know what it takes to get there,” Love added. “We know exactly what it takes to get there. And coming into this season, we know exactly how locked down we have to be and the level of seriousness that comes with that. Every time we step on the court, whether it’s conditioning, weight room, practice, workout, whatever the case may be, we know exactly what to do.”

For junior guard RJ Davis, he made it clear that because of their experience last year and the talent and cohesiveness on the roster this year, it’s ‘championship or bust’.

The Tar Heels have had a few ‘redemption’ teams in the past decade. You can look at the 2017 National Championship team, returning its core following the 2016 Title loss to Villanova, or the 2009 National Championship team that returned its core from a Final Four loss to Kansas. While not identical situations, the ‘redemption’ storyline is in the air again for this roster.

We’ll find out soon enough how ‘locked in’ this team is. But for now, it’s clear their mind is on one thing, and one thing only.