North Carolina riding its own wave of confidence and silencing doubters into Elite 8

Caleb Love has shot North Carolina off bubble and into East Regional final, where Tar Heels will meet Saint Peter’s. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

PHILADELPHIA — Most, if not all of the recent media attention at the East Regional has zeroed in on Saint Peter’s, creating a landscape where North Carolina is almost forgotten in a sense.

After all, hardly anyone expected the Tar Heels, the No. 8 seed in the East, to advance through the bracket the way they have, dominating Marquette, outlasting defending national champion Baylor, and bouncing UCLA behind Caleb Love’s second-half takeover Friday. But the message from head coach Hubert Davis was one where numbers did not matter, and UNC has heeded that advice as it stands on the precipice of a stage that may as well be a birthright in and around Chapel Hill.

“The four years I was at Carolina, I couldn’t remember what seed we were,” Davis said on Saturday, one day before UNC takes on national darling Saint Peter’s for a spot in the Final Four. “I just knew that we were in the NCAA Tournament and we were going against teams that were really good basketball teams that, any given day, can beat you if you don’t play your best. That was my communication to them.”

“When the tournament started, that was one of the first things Coach told us,” Armando Bacot echoed. “He never looked at seeding and he never really cared. It’s kind of funny how it played out now, an 8 and a 15 playing against each other.”

Something has to give inside the Wells Fargo Center Sunday, where a North Carolina team that has won 15 of its last 18 games clashes with a Saint Peter’s outfit that has been victorious in 10 straight over the past five weeks. Davis said he intended to reach out to King Rice and J.R. Reid, former teammates of his at UNC who are now the head coach and assistant at Monmouth, respectively, for pointers on how to handle a Peacocks squad that swept all three meetings — including the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship — with Rice’s Hawks, but praised the job that Shaheen Holloway has done guiding Saint Peter’s to this point.

“Saint Peter’s is an unbelievable team,” Davis said. “They have an outstanding coaching staff, and it’s a team that’s won 10 games in a row. They’re playing with a confidence and a toughness that has put them in the final eight, and at the end of the day, they’ve beaten two teams that we lost to. So as I said before, tomorrow will be our toughest game of the year.”

“I’ve given them this Bible verse, Proverbs 4:25. Keep your eyes straight ahead, ignore all sideshows and distractions. What’s straight ahead is Saint Peter’s. I don’t consider them David, I don’t consider us Goliath. I consider us North Carolina and them Saint Peter’s. They have our full attention, and rightfully so.”

“We don’t pay attention to Cinderella or the seeding or whatever,” Love admitted. “They’re another team that’s in our way. We’re going to treat them as such.”

Much like Saint Peter’s, UNC has relied on a multifaceted approach to author its March success, a welcome sight for a roster that had only one player — Leaky Black — with the experience of having won a game in the NCAA Tournament before last week. The Tar Heels, for all the history they have contributed to the sport, reached a milestone on Friday against UCLA, as Love’s 30-point performance gave UNC two different 30-point scorers in back-to-back NCAA Tournament games for the first time in program history, as RJ Davis scored 30 against Baylor while Brady Manek appeared well on his way to joining him at that plateau before being ejected for a flagrant-2 foul on Jeremy Sochan.

“One of the things that, throughout the course of the year, I felt like we needed is an extension of the coaching staff,” Davis revealed. “We needed a leader. One of the beautiful things that has emerged this year has not just been one leader, it’s been a host of leaders.”

“It’s not just Leaky who brings something to the table. Brady, RJ, Caleb, Armando, Kerwin (Walton), Puff (Johnson), Dontrez (Styles), everybody together has brought their piece. They’ve identified what allows them to be successful, and everyone has accepted their role in a place where they feel like it’s beneficial for them to be the best team that they can be.”