As UNC Opens Season At Aging Smith Center,
Davis Reflects On His Connection To His Coach

By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network

The 2024-25 North Carolina basketball season, which officially opened Monday night with the Tar Heels’ 90-76 victory over Elon at the Dean E. Smith Center, eventually will overlap with the 10-year anniversary of Smith’s death.

It may be difficult for many Carolina fans to believe, but the legendary coach has indeed been gone for almost a decade. He died Feb. 7, 2015, and he has been out of the public eye for an even longer period, because he suffered from advanced dementia and rarely made public appearances in his later years.

The 10-year anniversary of Smith’s death also will come at a time when UNC officials are continuing their debate about the future home of the Carolina men’s basketball program. In a committee report delivered to university leadership this summer, only two of the six options presented included keeping the Tar Heels at their current, on-campus location for the long-term future.

One option is a complete renovation of the Smith Center. Another is a teardown of the Smith Center, but with a total rebuild on the same footprint occupied by the current building. In either case, the team would have to play elsewhere during a lengthy construction process, but ultimately a future trip to see the Tar Heels would retain a greater sense of familiarity.

The other four committee suggestions involve building a new arena in a brand-new location, at either a different on-campus site or a nearby, off-campus site.

UNC coach Hubert Davis, who played for Smith from 1988-92, hopes to keep the Smith Center changes to a minimum … for very personal reasons.

“I never want to leave the Dean Smith Center,” Davis said in an exclusive interview on the David Glenn Show. “It connects me to Coach Smith, and I never want to be disconnected from him.”

Davis, a lightly recruited high school prospect from Virginia in the mid-1980s, actually committed to Smith not too long after the Smith Center’s opening in January 1986. Davis followed in the footsteps of his famous uncle Walter Davis, who also played for Smith but spent his playing days with the Tar Heels (1973-77) in Carmichael Auditorium, another on-campus arena.

Davis even remembers hearing the now-famous stories about how Smith needed to be convinced that the brand-new, $33.8 million facility should bear his name.

By the time the Smith Center opened, Smith already had one NCAA title (1982), seven Final Four appearances, nine ACC Tournament championships and 13 ACC regular-season titles (counting ties) as the head coach of the Tar Heels. (He later added to all those numbers.) During his time in Chapel Hill, Smith even won an Olympic gold medal, as the Team USA head coach in 1976, and he already was considered one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all-time.

“He never wanted to be acknowledged,” Davis said. “Everything that was acknowledged was about the team, and it was a big deal to put his name on there.”

Davis, who shares his former coach’s penchant for genuine humility, said he understands that he’s not a central part of the decision-making process surrounding the Tar Heels’ future home, but that he’ll share his viewpoint with whoever asks him about it.

“My two cents would be to stay in the Smith Center. Obviously, there’s history there for myself,” Davis said. “When you walk through that tunnel, you think about the great players, coaches, teams, memories in that building that I’ve also experienced as a player, as an assistant coach and as a head coach.

“When you walk through that tunnel, the first thing you see is the championship banners. Then you look the opposite direction, you see all those jerseys, honored and retired. And on the outside, it says Coach Dean Smith. I don’t want that to ever change.”

As one of Smith’s players, and now as one of Smith’s successors as the Tar Heels’ head coach, Davis has contributed to many of the Smith Center’s banners.

During his junior season, in 1990-91, he was Smith’s starting wing guard on a Final Four team that also included point guard King Rice, forward Rick Fox, forward George Lynch, forward Pete Chilcutt and center Eric Montross in important roles. (All but Rice went on to play in the NBA.) The Tar Heels also won the ACC Tournament during Davis’ freshman and junior seasons, in 1989 and 1991.

During his first three seasons as Carolina’s head coach, of course, Davis already has led the Tar Heels to two Sweet 16s (2022, 2024), a Final Four (2022) and one ACC regular-season title (2024).

Thanks mainly to a talented and experienced backcourt led by fifth-year senior RJ Davis, junior Seth Trimble and sophomore Elliot Cadeau, UNC is among the favorites in the ACC again this year, so perhaps additional banners are on the way.

Later this season, on Feb. 8, 2025, just one day after the 10-year anniversary of Smith’s death, Davis will lead the Tar Heels into battle against Pittsburgh in a nationally televised (ESPN or ESPN2) matchup at the Smith Center.

Davis said he hasn’t yet thought much about that angle, but that he doesn’t need a special occasion to remember his very special connection to his unforgettable coach.

“As I go to work every day, and I see him up there,” Davis said, “that puts a huge smile on my face.”