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Dayton, Ohio
The end is near. It may come Tuesday night, against San Diego State. It may come this weekend in Milwaukee. Perhaps R.J. Davis will help take North Carolina on the same kind of magical run he did as a sophomore, but one way or another, it will end.
And when it does, it won’t just mark the end of Davis’ illustrious career, one that saw him surpass former teammate Armando Bacot to trail only Tyler Hansbrough on North Carolina’s all-time scoring list and play for a national title.
When Davis walks off the floor for the last time, the last player coached by Roy Williams to wear the North Carolina jersey will finally take it off, for good.
The passage of time is relentless, the forces of change in college basketball even more so, so it is probably more surprising that there still was one connection left to Williams all these years later than it is surprising that the last link is finally being severed.
That thought crossed Davis’ mind the morning of the Duke game, before he was honored for the second time as a departing senior, but landed heavy upon him during his last run out of the tunnel onto the court, past the seats where Williams and his wife Wanda sit for every game.
“I always tap Roy on the shoe, just to dap him up one last time, and it hit me that I’m the last of the Roy era,” Davis said. “It’s a great feeling, just to understand what Roy Williams meant to North Carolina but also to college basketball, to be his last recruit, that’s a terrific story right there. I’m very fortunate to have played for him for one year but at the same time share the relationship I have with him. It’s meant a lot to me.”
Two of Davis’ teammates from his freshman year are still playing in this NCAA tournament — Caleb Love at Arizona and Kerwin Walton at Texas Tech, with a third, Puff Johnson done at Penn State — but Davis is the last player standing at North Carolina and the last one to play at the Smith Center in front of the coach who first convinced him to come to Chapel Hill.
To that coach, it doesn’t seem like all that long ago, and there’s still a sense of vindication in seeing Davis climb the scoring charts, not to mention a personal 7-3 record in the NCAA tournament going into Tuesday night.
“Well, it’s a sad thing, but also I feel very lucky because he’s such a wonderful kid,” Williams said. “I remember sitting with his mom and dad saying, ‘You’re going to be all right, because of how tough you are. You’re not the biggest, you’re not the fastest, but you’re going to be all right. You’ve got a chance to be a big-time player just because of how tough you are.’ I really believed that. I thought he was going to be a big-time player and he’s exceeded that. What he’s done is amazing.”
Even in the revolving-door world of college basketball, even after Hubert Davis took over and took the Tar Heels to the Final Four in his first season, players like Davis and Armando Bacot served as a transition from one era to another, stalwarts who came to North Carolina to play for Williams and stayed to play for Davis — for so long, in both their cases, that it felt like they’d be there forever.
And not just to them.
“It’s pretty surreal and it’s weird to hear that he’s the last player,” said Joel Berry, who starred on North Carolina’s 2017 national champions and is now an ACC Network analyst. “That does make me feel old. I will say, as I get ready to enter my 30s, I did see a gray hair in my beard. I’m getting up there. But it’s pretty crazy – you don’t think it happens but it’s happening.”
Williams, obviously, hasn’t exactly disappeared. When he’s not watching North Carolina play, he’s often spotted elsewhere, still an inveterate hoops junkie most at home in a gym (with the exception, maybe, of a golf course).
He’s as emotionally invested in North Carolina basketball as he ever was, and the changes to the UNC program — and the hiring of longtime agent Jim Tanner as general manager — smack of Williams’ influence, desperate to ensure his succession to Hubert Davis is a long-term success.
While Williams’ legacy would be burnished if Davis can restore the Tar Heels to their traditional place among the college hoops elite and make it a successful succession, R.J. Davis will soon have done all he can. He played in Williams’ last game. Soon, he’ll play in his own.
“If I was still coaching him, you know what I’d be calling him,” Williams said, relishing the chance to use one of his favorite nuggets of praise: “A tough little nut.”
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This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
Luke DeCock
The News & Observer
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Sports columnist Luke DeCock joined The News & Observer in 2000 and has covered seven Final Fours, the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl and the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup. He is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, was the 2020 winner of the National Headliner Award as the country’s top sports columnist and has twice been named North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year.