With the North Carolina Tar Heels unbeaten in the Atlantic Coast Conference and being ranked No. 3 in the latest coaches poll, they are playing some of their best basketball in a long time.
And a big reason why is guard RJ Davis.
The point guard has been the best player in the conference and among the best in the entire country. Davis is averaging 21.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists while shooting 44.8 percent from the field. He’s led UNC’s offense which is No. 16 in points per game going into the final few days of January.
For Davis’ play, he was recognized as one of the players on The Athletic’s midseason All-American team:
Lost in all the offseason fuss about Caleb Love’s transfer to Arizona was the fact that North Carolina still had another pretty good guard the last three seasons — and now with Love gone, Davis is making sure the whole country knows his name. The 6-foot senior has been sensational in leading the Tar Heels to No. 3 in the AP poll, scoring at least 20 points in 12 of UNC’s first 20 games, including eight straight from late November through December. On Monday, he dropped a career-high 36 against Wake Forest, the most points by a UNC player at home since Tyler Hansbrough had 39 back in 2007-08 — the same year Hansbrough was the unanimous National Player of the Year. Davis is up to sixth in KenPom’s National Player of the Year rankings, and he’s the highest-rated guard on the list. A 50-40-90 season is probably just out of reach, but the fact that it’s even a possibility tells you all you need to know about how good Davis has been.
Davis made the first team which included Zach Edey, JaeDon LeDee, Kevin McCullar Jr., and Kyle Filipowski.
If Davis keeps this up, it should mean good things not only for himself but for the Tar Heels in terms of making a run in the NCAA Tournament.
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