Hubert Davis<\/a> addressed the media Friday afternoon on the eve of what would become a landmark win in North Carolina basketball history, Inside Carolina asked the head coach for his thoughts on the future of the building he once played in:<\/p>\nHave you been kept in the know and involved in the conversations for what may be down the line with the Smith Center?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hubert Davis: \u201cI\u2019ve had conversations with it, but you know, one of the things that I always say to you guys, say to the team, is keep your eyes straight ahead and focus on the things that are real.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the things that are real are those 16 guys in this locker room this season and coaching this team and trying to see how good this year\u2019s team can become.\u201d<\/p>\n
You were a player here, an assistant coach here, the head coach here, as this building is on the brink of experiencing the 500 win mark, how much is this place a part of who you are?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davis: \u201cHow much? Completely. When I look at the Smith Center, it\u2019s not just about the experiences as a player, as a coach, this is home plate for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve told you guys this before. The most significant things that have happened in my life have been because of this place. So it\u2019s not just basketball.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where I fell in love with my wife, we got married, where I became a Christian, where we bought our first house after I retired from the NBA, we decided to raise our kids here, and so the Smith Center is home plate for all of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so when I come into this building, yeah, I think about a number of different experiences on the court, as a player, as a coach. But I can also, automatically every day that I come into work, I can remember every conversation that I had with Coach Smith, Coach Guthridge and Coach Williams in every room in this place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I think my comments are pretty much consistent with any former player. And so that\u2019s just the way I feel about this place here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following Saturday\u2019s historic win, Inside Carolina asked Davis for his thoughts on the future plans for the home of Carolina basketball:<\/p>\n
500th win in the Smith Center tonight \u2014\u00a0you talked yesterday about how this is home plate for you, with the school about to make a pivotal decision about the future of this building, of the options on the table, what is your preference?<\/p>\n
Davis: \u201cWell look, I love the Smith Center. As I said before, I said home plate? This is home. You know, the first place that I saw my first Carolina game was Carmichael when I got to see my uncle play. But I knew I always wanted to be here and I wanted to be a part of this place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked about that, and I mentioned this to the team before the game. I said that you have to find joy and enjoyment of how hard and difficult it is to be successful individually and as a team. And I said, where do you find that joy and enjoyment? A lot of times, people look at the destination or getting to the destination, and I told them, that\u2019s the wrong place to look. I said, where you find the joy and enjoyment is in the journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I talked specifically about \u2014 you said 500 wins \u2014 I don\u2019t know the stats. I don\u2019t really know the stats of really this game. I couldn\u2019t tell you what was game number one, game number 250, but I can tell you, I can tell you more than 500 memories that I have here personally, conversations with Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge, bringing my wife here, taking them to Coach Smith, my best friends of my life started here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so it\u2019s more than just wins, and it\u2019s about the relationships, the experiences that all of us, as former players, have had here that bind us to this place, to this university and to the Smith Center.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPEL HILL, N.C. \u2014 Saturday\u2019s 500th victory inside the Dean E. Smith Center came at a crossroads for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,14168],"class_list":["post-536736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-hubert-davis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115895289421447853","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}