Since he became North Carolina’s head basketball coach almost three years ago, Hubert Davis has required his players to visit his office at least once a week during the season. It’s a firm commitment and if there’s one rule about these visits, aside from the mandatory attendance, it’s that they’re never really ever supposed to be about basketball.
They are, instead, supposed to be about life. How his players are doing and what they’re going through. Sometimes the conversations are more serious; sometimes lighter. But there’s that rule, almost always: No basketball talk. There’s enough of that, after all, during practices or film sessions or team meetings.
“We’ve got to talk about school,” Davis said, “whatever they’re watching on Netflix, what’s their favorite thing they like to eat. But I call the guys into the office all the time.”
That Davis practices this weekly ritual with his players is not new, or revelatory. He has spoken about it openly. But it came up again Saturday night, after the Tar Heels’ 93-84 victory over Duke. Davis found himself talking about his weekly meetings because one of them, as he might’ve hoped, proved especially instrumental in his team’s performance against the Blue Devils.