UNC Basketball news: Roy defends Hubert, free admission, another RJ Davis milestone

The North Carolina Tar Heels got a much-needed win on Wednesday night over NC State, and unlike most of their victories this season, this one came pretty easily. UNC never trailed in the game, and the only disappointment of the night was that they fell three points short of biscuits territory, as the final was 97-73.

It was easy to forget while watching this game that this has been one of the tougher Tar Heels seasons in recent memory. The Heels looked fast, they swarmed to the ball on defense, and they dominated the boards. In short, they looked nothing like the team that has scuffled their way to the wrong side of the bubble.

Is this a sign that Carolina is ready to make a late-season push? Or should we not ascribe much meaning to a 24-point win over a bad team? We'll find out soon enough.

In our Tar Heels news of the week, we have some interesting tidbits from the win, plus an important update in the Hubert Davis Hot Seat watch. Let's begin!

Snowstorm results in free admission for UNC fans

It can cost a pretty penny to get into the Dean Dome to see the Tar Heels play in person, especially against a rival like NC State. A local snowstorm changed that though, with the university making the rare but awesome decision to allow free admission to anyone who was able to make it.

The stadium was well below capacity, but the atmosphere was incredible as students packed the lower level, a place normally populated by a decidedly older set of fans.

There's long been a debate about whether students should have more of a presence in the lower level. The answer, at least if Carolina wants the best possible home court advantage, is easy — yes they should. But wealthy donors have gotten their way and those prized seats, at the expense of creating a more intimidating atmosphere for opposing teams to face.

Wednesday's game was a reminder of what a difference a vocal student presence can make at games. The university is currently looking at building a replacement for the Dean Dome, and one of the options on the table is to build an off-campus stadium for the first time ever. This would make something like Wednesday night impossible, as students would no longer be able to easily get to the stadium. The Daily Tar Heel, UNC's student newspaper, argued for renovating the current Dean Dome instead. Maybe this game will give that a better chance of happening.

RJ Davis reaches another milestone

RJ Davis led all scorers with 21 points, and he continued his climb up the all-time ACC scoring leaderboard in the process.

Davis passed Virginia's Bryant Stith to move up to fifth on that list in last week's loss at Clemson, and he jumped two more ACC legends on Wednesday night. First was NC State's Rodney Monroe, then was Duke's Johnny Dawkins. Davis now has 2,560 points in his career, trailing only Duke's JJ Redick (2,769) and Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough (2,872).

It's still possible for Davis to catch Redick, but he's going to need the Tar Heels to go on a run in the ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament to do it. He's 209 points behind, but all he's guaranteed is five more regular season games and one ACC Tournament game. That would mean he'd need to average nearly 35 points per game to get there, and that's not going to happen.

If Carolina can make a run to the ACC Tournament final and then win a couple of games in the NCAA Tournament, the task suddenly becomes much more doable. That would give Davis 12 games to get 209 points, so he'd only have to average 17.4 points per game, which is right in line with what he's done this season.

Of course, Carolina hasn't looked like a team that's capable of going on that kind of run, but if they can play like they did on Wednesday, it could be possible. Davis was part of the 2021-22 team that started the season slow before reaching the national championship game, so this wouldn't be his first time.

Roy Williams defends Hubert Davis

Carolina's rough season has resulted in some calls for Hubert Davis to be fired, but his former boss believes that is foolish. Roy Williams joined Zach Gelb of the Infinity Sports Network earlier this week to talk about why Davis is the right man for the job, and as he usually does, he brought up some good points.

Williams compared the criticism facing Davis to what he used to deal with when he was Carolina's head coach. Just as he said back in the day that he had more passion for Carolina basketball in his little finger than his critics did, he said that Davis did too. For those that don't remember, Williams won three national titles in 18 seasons, so he knows what he's talking about.

Ol' Roy recommended Davis as his successor in the first place, and he pointed out that Davis reached the national title game in his first year and won the ACC regular season title last year, a feat made even more difficult by conference expansion. He also said that he expects the team to go on a run to end the season, which would certainly get Davis back in everyone's good graces.

Williams said, "I would love for it to turn around 180 degrees so I could look at all those other suckers and tell them to shut up," which is about as perfect a Roy quote as you can get.

Williams is clearly still in Davis' corner, a fact that no doubt helps his grip on the job. The best way to really secure his future though would be to make a run. We'll know soon if the Heels are able to do it.