UNC Basketball 2021-22 Player Preview: R.J. Davis

Our UNC basketball 2021-22 player previews continue with one of the Tar Heels’ sensational young back court stars, sophomore shooting guard R.J. Davis.

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The North Carolina Tar Heels begin the 2021-22 college basketball season as the nation’s 19th-ranked team. Expectations for this year’s Tar Heels are varied, with uncertainty stemming from their new-look roster and unexpected offseason coaching change.

The Tar Heels gladly welcome back junior center Armando Bacot, and a talented crop of sophomore guards that features returning starters Caleb Love and Kerwin Walton. But also in that group of up-and-coming second-year players is shooting guard R.J. Davis. The 6-foot, 175-pound White Plains, New York native figures to be a difference-maker for North Carolina this season.

Davis is surrounded by a number of other players that are significant in their own right, so he’ll definitely have to earn his minutes on the court. But if he can prove to be a solid one-two punch alongside Love, as well as a seamless replacement for Love when he isn’t on the court, then he’ll have no problem. Not only that, but the Tar Heels will be better for it. As we saw last season, inconsistency at the point guard position can be a real issue for a run-and-gun team like North Carolina.

Season Review, 2020-21

Davis put together a solid, though sometimes inconsistent, freshman campaign in Chapel Hill. He scored 8.4 points per game to go along with 2.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 29 appearances. He got 10 starts on the season, but those all came prior to the emergence of fellow freshman guard Kerwin Walton. After Walton was elevated to the Tar Heels’ starting lineup, Davis was relegated to a reserve role.

And while Davis was terrible by no means, there are areas in which he will look to improve this season. An uptick in his shooting percentage both from the floor and beyond the three-point line would help him see more minutes this season, and more importantly, keep UNC opponents honest when defending him. Despite his overall shooting woes, however, he was one of the team’s best free throw shooters at 82.1 percent. He’ll also need to improve his ability to control the offense and facilitate the ball to his teammates, as he finished the season with a dead-even assist-to-turnover ratio.

What to Expect in 2021-22

I look for Davis to improve this season both as a shooter and a ball-handler. There’s no doubt that he possesses the ability to do so, and I think having a handful of more consistent shooters around him this season will help. Teams shouldn’t be able to cheat on the defensive end against UNC this season, nor should they be able to frequently double-team any one player. That will help Davis and the rest of the Tar Heels to play better than they did a year ago when they won just 18 games and lost in the NCAA Tournament first round for the first (and only) time in Roy Williams’ career.

Bold Prediction

Davis will shoot better than 40 percent from the floor and 35 percent from three-point range, establishing himself as a player that can knock down shots from anywhere on the court. Look for his assist-to-turnover ratio to improve greatly as the Tar Heels’ secondary option at point guard. If he can do all of that, a case could be made for Davis to be the Tar Heels’ starting point guard in the event that Love leaves North Carolina for the NBA next year.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for the rest of our player preview series, and everything on the UNC basketball program.