Hubert Davis Notices UNC Basketball 'Slippage' in Two Areas

UNC basketball hopes to win two in a row for the first time in almost a month.

Photo credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

On Friday, ahead of Saturday's showdown against unranked Virginia (20-7, 11-5 ACC) in Charlottesville at 4 p.m. ET (ESPN), third-year UNC basketball head coach Hubert Davis met with the media to discuss the state of his No. 10 Tar Heels (20-6, 12-3 ACC) entering their final quarter of conference play.

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He is well aware of UNC's ACC-leading numbers in the rebounding department and still-solid season stats on defense. But with a full week without a game, Davis had a chance to zero in on areas showing room for improvement of late.

As his Tar Heels look to turn last Saturday's 96-81 home win over Virginia Tech into a winning streak after losing every other game across their past six outings, here's what the 53-year-old said about rebounding and defense:

"I was looking forward to this week. One of the things was us practicing on us instead of practicing in preparation for a game. And so, obviously, we've had to practice in preparation for [Saturday], but we've also had practices where we've just focused on us.

"One of the things that we've talked about at great length was, just from a defensive standpoint, just tightening the screws on the discipline and details that allow us to be a good defensive team.

"Two areas that I would say that I've really reinforced...

"One, rebounding the basketball — boxing out and rebounding. And I know statistically, in terms of defensive rebounding percentage, we're No. 1 in the conference.

"But I felt like there's been slippage in that over the last two or three weeks, in particularly teams getting second-chance opportunities and them capitalizing on that.

"The other area is having the discipline to be able to defend without fouling. I just feel like we've been putting teams on the free throw line a lot more lately.

"And so, [we've addressed] those specific areas defensively, just doing a better job at to allow us to be the best that we can be on that end."

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