The UNC basketball program suffered a nail-biting loss to No. 8-ranked BYU in exhibition play on Friday night, but the game itself serves as a tremendous learning experience for Hubert Davis' new-look team.
Following the contest, Davis spoke to the media about the exhibition match in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Tar Heels' head coach felt that the game was a positive learning experience for his team.
To view his entire press conference, check out Inside Carolina's video below. You can also see some of the key points from the post game press conference in the transcript below:
What did the Tar Heels get out of this game?
“There’s a number of things that I liked out of this, obviously on and off the court. Off the court, having the rhythm and routine of going on the road, traveling, playing, hotels, meetings, shoot arounds, film, all those things in preparation for the upcoming season. And then playing a quality opponent, such as BYU, and just being able to, clearly identify things that we’re doing well and things that we need to get better at. And also, we’ve got 11 new guys on the team, and one of the things that I always tell them is you really only have control of two things: how you react and how you respond. So I was really excited about how we were going to react and how we were going to respond playing on the road, playing against BYU tonight with this new team.”
The value of late-game situational work against a quality opponent
“It really was (valuable). You just can’t get that to practice, and so what we got today just really helped us. Before we went out, I said the number one thing that I wanted to get from this is I wanted us to take a big step forward and moving forward to potentially being the best possible team that we can become, whether it’s shoot around, pick up, camp game, whatever. I want to win, but there was a lot of things that I was really happy with.”
Was Davis happy with how the final play of the game developed?
“We’ll take that. We had two plays. If BYU made one, and they were only up by three. We’re still going to call a timeout at half court. I had a play for three and a play for two, and we felt very good about the play that we ran. We got our most athletic, most powerful player, attacking the basket, and just unfortunately missed it.”
What impressed Davis most about Caleb Wilson's performance?
“It’s not just about his game, it’s every day. Obviously, he’s very gifted, but he’s a great kid and a great teammate, and his competitiveness is just a joy to coach and to be around. In terms of reacting and responding, I thought he did a really nice job tonight.”
His take on the turnover issue (especially in the first half)
“They were an issue the whole game. One of the things I take from Coach Williams, he always says that turnovers are one of two things. It’s either selfishness or carelessness. With this group, it is never, ever selfish, but it was just careless. You guys have been at practice. I always say two-hand passes, two-hand catches, be fundamentally sound, simple works, make routine plays routinely. And I can’t wait to watch a film. I think a lot of them are one-hand passes, one-hand catches. You know, shot, fake, pass, fake. I mean, just basic, fundamental things. And I think a little bit in the first half, it reminded me, and I told him this in the huddle of the first two weeks of practice, where everybody’s just running around so fast, and I felt like we just needed to settle in. But the turnovers were, I think, the number one determining factor. 19 turnovers, they scored 16 points off those turnovers, and we lost by two.”
Henri Veesaar
“Henri’s dynamic. He’s big. He’s good when he has space, really good on empty side ball screens. Called a couple plays to get him on the roll, on the run to the basket, and he has the ability to be able to finish with either hand. He can really shoot from three, and he didn’t hit a three tonight, but we felt like the way that BYU was playing ball screens with the five, we would have some opportunities to get Henry with some momentum going towards the rim.”
Did this feel like a real game?
"It felt real. In the huddles, it was pretty animated, which I like, and it goes back to react and respond. I felt like every time it felt like BYU was going to go on a run, we stopped it, and we either caught back up or took the lead, and that was another thing that I was happy about.”