UNC basketball guard RJ Davis (Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports)
UNC Basketball: RJ Davis Visualizes Return to 'Carolina Pace'
RJ Davis and the UNC basketball squad scored transition points early and often in Friday night's 117-53 exhibition win over St. Augustine's in the Dean E. Smith Center. Davis had 17 points less than six minutes into the game.
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But their effort in that department left Davis wanting more easy buckets and momentum-controlling displays from a group hoping to change the narrative following the Tar Heels' well-documented woes last season (20-13 overall record after beginning the season at No. 1 in the AP Top 25).
"The emphasis has been to get back to 'Carolina Pace' by getting up and running," the 22-year-old Davis explained after the exhibition contest. "We had 25 fastbreak points. That's pretty good. That's just Coach Davis and the rest of the coaching staff emphasizing getting out and running — looking to primarily run, not really settling in and trying to get set down plays.
"We want to get layups, and that's what we did."
As third-year head coach Hubert Davis confirmed, that's the brand of Carolina basketball they're looking to produce aplenty this year.
"I wouldn't characterize [the performance against St. Augustine's] as old Carolina basketball," Davis said about his preseason No. 19 Tar Heels. "I would characterize it as Carolina basketball...It's playing hard, playing smart, and playing together. I felt like tonight we played hard, we played smart, and we played together. And we had fun."
UNC's real "fun" begins against visiting Radford on Monday at 7 p.m. ET.
Stay tuned to All Tar Heels on SI.com for more UNC basketball news.
