Davis has a special night even by high standards

Imagine being the first person to accomplish something since Michael Jordan did it. It sounds impressive, am I right?

Doesn’t really matter what the accomplishment is. If you are the first person to do it since he did it, the assumption is that you must be really good.

UNC’s basketball team has a point guard named R.J. Davis and I watched him do something against Miami the other night that reminded me and everyone else paying attention just how good he was.

Y’all know I’m a Tar Heels fan. I don’t try to hide my bias. You don’t have to be a fan of UNC to appreciate what Davis has accomplished though.

He somehow managed to outscore his entire team. In a 75-71 victory over Miami at home the other night, Davis scored 42 points while everyone else on his squad mustered up a mere 33 points combined. You can double check the math, I certainly did.

He was the first Tar Heel to do it in 41 years since Michael Jordan scored 39 of his team’s 72 points against Georgia Tech.

Such a feat requires a player having a great offensive night to be surrounded by teammates that are clearly not. That’s exactly what R.J. got.

On an evening with R.J. Davis managed to score double his average, he didn’t have a single teammate find a way to even score double digits. North Carolina would have certainly lost without him.

There are a plethora of historical records being broken around college athletics because of players who have been in college for a record number of years. The Covid years have allowed some athletes to stick around and continue playing and compiling statistics.

When Davis scored 42 points in the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill against Miami, that wasn’t historic as a result of him having extra years to pad his stats. He scored more points in a game than any Tar Heel ever had in that building. Oh, did I not mention that before?

Tyler Hansbrough topped the list with 40 points until Davis showed off the other night. In a building where NBA standouts like Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, Brad Daughtery, Raymond Felton, Eric Montross, Tyler Lawson, Brendan Haywood and J.R. Reid played, Davis now holds the record for most points in a single game.

He is a prototypical New York point guard. He is tough and tenacious, a product of his environment. He is also a young man that smiles a lot and represents the university well off the court — likely a product of his home environment as well.

Carolina fans like myself should be grateful he plays for our team. It’s really been a privilege to watch him wear those pink Jordans he loves and give maximum effort every time he steps on the court.