Carolina Desperately Needs RJ Davis
To Find Last Season’s 3-Point Groove
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
RJ Davis, the most prolific 3-point shooter in North Carolina basketball history, needs to start making more 3-pointers.
That may sound a bit strange, but it’s really that simple.
Given Davis’ various other contributions (e.g., high-level scoring, elite free throw shooting, effective assist-turnover ratio, relentless energy, veteran savvy) to the Tar Heels, when he can make 40 percent of his 3-point attempts, as he did last season, he’s a first-team All-American.
When Davis is converting only 28 percent of his 3-point attempts, as he is so far this season, he’s not even a realistic first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference candidate, even in a down year for the league. When he shoots that poorly from long range, he’s not even the best player on his team.
What’s especially odd about Davis’ extreme drop in long-range accuracy is that virtually every other aspect of his game has remained at least as good as it was last season, when he earned the ACC Player of the Year honor and led the Tar Heels to a first-place ACC regular-season finish.
For example, Davis made about 46 percent of his two-point attempts last season; he’s at 48 percent this year. He’s making about 86 percent of his free throws this season; that’s right at his career average, which is the best in UNC history. He’s averaging a career-best four assists per game, more than twice what he averaged as a freshman. His assist-turnover stats (71-32) reflect better than a 2-1 ratio and an output very similar to last year’s numbers in those categories. He’s getting to the foul line with an even greater frequency, by a small margin, than he did last season.
Those 3-pointers, though, have been a massive struggle, and that’s become a major problem for the Tar Heels, even leading to questions for UNC coach Hubert Davis (an elite 3-point shooter in his playing days) regarding whether RJ Davis should consider altering the mechanics of his shot.
“I think it’s difficult to make major changes in your shot,” Hubert Davis said. “But changes in terms of, let me get a little bit more arc, let me use my legs a little bit more, let me get my elbow in, let me make sure that my guide hand isn’t too much on the ball, (yes).”
RJ Davis clearly knows plenty about shooting mechanics, too.
His 309 career 3-pointers are the most in Carolina history. His 113 3-pointers as a senior, in 2023-24, marked the highest single-season total in program history. His 23 consecutive games with multiple 3-pointers last season crushed the school record, previously held by Justin Jackson (15). Importantly, last year’s numbers came with a wonderfully high accuracy rate (about 40 percent), typically against opponents’ top perimeter defenders.
Two significant personnel differences between last season and this season likely are impacting Davis’ performance, beyond his own shooting form.
First, for the only time in Davis’ five-year college career, there’s no Armando Bacot in the low post. Especially over the past three seasons, opposing defenses spent a lot of time, energy and bodies trying to limit the big guy’s impact in the paint. That gave Davis and UNC’s other shooters significantly more breathing room — i.e., shooting space — on the perimeter.
Second, in 2023-24, when Davis wasn’t catching kick-out passes from Bacot, he often was receiving accurate, on-time perimeter distributions from savvy, sure-handed, high-basketball-IQ veterans such as Cormac Ryan and Harrison Ingram. Davis also had especially high shooting numbers when he was on the floor at the same time as point guard Elliot Cadeau, then a freshman.
Cadeau is back, of course, but the Tar Heels simply don’t have a dangerous low-post scorer this year to take pressure off the perimeter. Meanwhile, Cadeau and Davis are still trying to build the best possible chemistry with new backcourt mate Ian Jackson, who already has proven himself as one of the top freshmen in the ACC this season.
There have been some signs of progress for Davis lately, and those individual improvements have coincided with a rise in Carolina’s fortunes.
The Tar Heels have won six of their last seven games, improving their season marks to 12-6 overall and 5-1 in the ACC. Over that exact stretch, Davis took significant steps toward rediscovering his 3-point shooting prowess.
During the first 10 games of this season, as the Tar Heels were starting with a mediocre 6-4 record, Davis made only 19 of his 76 3-point attempts (25 percent).
That caused some to flash back to the final game of Carolina’s 2023-24 season, when Davis went 0-for-9 from long range in the Heels’ Sweet 16 loss to Alabama. That marked the only game of the season in which Davis failed to convert even once from beyond the arc.
Over the next seven games this season, in contrast, Davis was 15-for-45 on 3-pointers, for a 33 percent success rate. That’s still not a great number, but it’s a lot better than 25 percent, and it’s about halfway back to the far more desirable 40 percent mark.
“I’ve been watching a lot of film of my jump shots,” Davis said. “Big May (UNC assistant coach Sean May) actually sent me clips of my shot from this year just so I can critique myself and when shots are going in, when shots are not. I felt like the beginning of the year, I was rushing my shot rather than just shooting the basketball, being patient with it. I felt like I was pressing a little bit.
“When I do make a shot, it’s more as I’m set, my feet are set and in a relaxed position. I’ve been doing a good job of doing that.”
Thus far in ACC play, whereas Carolina has the best defensive efficiency numbers in the entire conference (only Duke is even close), the Tar Heels rank only 14th in the newly expanded, 18-team ACC in offensive efficiency, mainly for two reasons. They’re turning the ball over a lot during league games, and they’re hitting only 32.8 percent of their 3-pointers as a team.
While it’s unlikely the Tar Heels will find a great answer to their post problems this season, it seems much more possible that they can improve their backcourt chemistry … and that Davis can rediscover more of his long-range magic.
“The person that knew my shot the most was me, and so I knew when I was making shots. I knew when I was missing and why I was missing,” Hubert Davis said. “In the same regards for RJ, he’s in more of a rhythm now and knocking down shots, and that’s exactly the way that I like it.”
