Find out why this summer helped put UNC basketball on track as Hubert Davis era begins

North Carolina’s backcourt of Caleb Love, Kerwin Walton and R.J. Davis never knew they needed a summer in Chapel Hill — until those guards from the class of 2020 spent the summer in Chapel Hill.

The COVID-19 pandemic last year erased what has been something of a rite of passage for incoming Tar Heels players. They report to campus for summer classes. They begin their strength and conditioning regimen and, most importantly, get to play pickup basketball games with former and current players.

As the Tar Heels officially begin men’s basketball practice Tuesday for the first time under new head coach Hubert Davis, the trio feels better prepared for what’s coming in the regular season.

“Both summer sessions were extremely helpful for us, as far as, you know, being in the weight room and on the court dealing together with our new team in the chemistry,” sophomore guard R.J. Davis said. “... so I feel like this past summer was way better than last summer as far as we were just thrown into the fire and had to pick up things on the go.”

No one knew that would be the case more than former coach Roy Williams. One of the unwritten rules of Carolina basketball is that the former players help get the newcomers ready to play during those summer interactions.

It was no surprise to Williams that many teams that relied heavily on freshmen last season struggled throughout the year because they didn’t get to experience the normal summer transition of getting acclimated to their new programs. (See also: Duke, Kentucky from last season.)

Williams said Love, Davis and Walton would have benefited from playing with former guard Coby White last year in the same way White and others gained an advantage from playing pickup when Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson and others returned to play. The trio was able to find out just how much they missed out on when the likes of White, who is now with the Chicago Bulls, and others like Theo Pinson returned to campus for a period this summer to work out and play games in Chapel Hill.

“The NBA guys would have been pulling them over and talking to them about what needs to be done and what practice is going to be like, we didn’t have any of that,” Williams told the News & Observer. “It was not what they thought college was going to be like and it’s not what it’s ever been like here at North Carolina. So I think particularly Caleb and R.J., it affected those two guys I think more than anybody.”

Missing summer manifested itself on the court in the amount of mistakes the young Heels made. They didn’t know all the nuances to their teammates’ games that comes from repeatedly playing with them in the summer.

Love’s turnover rate percentage was 24.6 and Davis’ was 22.1, according to KenPom.com, which was the first time both of Carolina’s primary ball handlers topped 20 percent since Kendall Marshall (29.5) and Larry Drew II (28.9) the 2010-11 season. The last time UNC’s starting point guard topped that mark was when a freshman Marcus Paige (25.6) was thrust into the starting role in 2012-13 due to Marshall’s early departure to the NBA.

Paige is one of the former Carolina players now playing professionally overseas, who made it a point to come back this summer. The same goes for White and Kennedy Meeks. Love said Paige was one of the more difficult players he defended during the course of the summer.

“It’s the pickup games that really helped me,” Love said. “Learning from like the guys that come back and as far as just development I think the coaches, all the coaches being on the court and helping us day in and day out, that’s just been helpful.”

Hubert Davis pointed out that no matter how talented incoming freshmen are, there’s still a big adjustment to college basketball. When Davis played for the Heels, he said it helped him as a freshman having someone like current assistant coach Jeff Lebo on the roster. Lebo, who was a senior when Davis was a freshman, helped, “set the standard of what he needed to do to be successful.”

As important as it was this summer for Hubert Davis to secure three transfers to bolster its frontcourt after the departures of Day’Ron Sharpe, Garrison Brooks and Walker Kessler, it was just as important to have his returning backcourt in Chapel Hill for the first time. Love, R.J. Davis and Walton finally got the tutelage from older Tar Heels.

“They came on campus and put the ball in their hands gave them the keys and said, ‘Hey, you’re in North Carolina, let’s go,’ ” Hubert Davis said. “So they never had that older player to kind of help them along. And so having that experience as a freshman coming back as a sophomore, you can see the confidence, their understanding of what it takes to be successful, and all three of them have improved so much and I’m really excited to see the development from them from their freshman year to their sophomore year.”

Walton said he was expecting big things from Love in particular, after a season that, “people probably have written him off already.”

“He’s gonna be 10 times better than he was last year because just the amount of work he’s put in and how focused he is,” Walton said. “I think he’s going to be great.”