CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — On Thursday night, after North Carolina finished its last practice before hosting Kansas, Hubert Davis took a drive.
Sixty miles, maybe an hour and a half, due south to Pinehurst.
To Roy Williams’ house.
Williams, Davis’ predecessor, has been laid up for several weeks after undergoing a knee replacement. That’s why the 75-year-old, who has rarely missed a UNC home game since retiring in 2021, was absent from both the Tar Heels’ exhibition in October and season opener earlier this week.
“Coach wants to be at everything,” Davis said, “so I said, after practice, I’m just going to go down and see him.”
Davis knew that Williams — Kansas’ coach for 15 seasons — would have strong feelings about KU coming to Chapel Hill for the first time. Knew that Williams, health willing, would give anything to be at that game, in his typical seats to the right of UNC’s tunnel. More than anything, though, Davis knew that Williams could commiserate with him about one nagging reality: North Carolina hadn’t beaten Kansas in 23 years, going 0-5 in Williams’ and Davis’ tenures.
Davis walked into Williams’ house and found his old boss with a lengthy prep sheet for Kansas.
“He went through every guy on the team,” Davis said.
The two coaches chatted for an hour and a half, about game particulars and the big picture. Eventually, Davis got up to leave, but for the rest of the night, he couldn’t stop thinking about his time with Williams.
“I know Coach enjoys retirement and spending time with his grandchildren, but you could just see,” Davis said. “If he could just have one more time to be in that locker room …”
It was the same sentiment Davis and his staff have shared with UNC’s players: As coaches, we wish we could put on the uniform and run out of that tunnel — but we can’t.
“I told the guys, guess what?” Davis said. “You can.”
No further pregame speech necessary. Message received. Forty minutes later, Davis re-entered the same locker room where he’d delivered that talk and found himself stuck in a water bottle shower: the celebration of an overwhelming 87-74 UNC win over the No. 19 Jayhawks (1-1).
The win, in and of itself, was nice. The sort of nonconference statement that the No. 25 Tar Heels (2-0) never made last season as they went 1-8 against ranked teams.
But the way UNC won — outscoring KU by 21 points in the second half, scoring the second-most points (58) that any Bill Self-coached Kansas team has ever allowed in a half — is what Tar Heel fans will remember most.
It’s what will inspire hope that this season is the end of the roller-coaster ride that defined Davis’ first four seasons.
“It validates his thoughts and the vision that he had,” said senior guard Seth Trimble, who scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half. “It takes some early stress off of him, getting a big win like that — and it gives not only him, but this whole team, a bunch of confidence going into the rest of the season, knowing that we can really do this.”
That vision was apparent in UNC’s first offensive possession of the game, when freshman forward Caleb Wilson corralled a missed 3-pointer and slammed it home for a thunderous dunk. It’s rare for a freshman to set the tone for an entire evening, but that’s precisely what Wilson, the first Tar Heel ever to score 20-plus in his first two games, did.
About Wilson. Of the 11 new players Davis brought in this offseason, none has been as impactful as the top-10 national recruit — both on the court and beyond it.
For instance, Wilson posted on social media this week that he’d like a white-out showing from fans against Kansas. On Thursday, the school officially announced it would do it.
“It’s the first white-out I’ve ever had in 14 years here,” Davis joked. “We had a freshman just say, we’re having a white-out — and the whole 22,000 showed up in white.”
Most UNC fans heeded Caleb Wilson’s message and showed up in white for Friday’s win over Kansas. (Grant Halverson / Getty Images)
On the court, Wilson has been better than Davis and his staff could’ve hoped. The game-high 24 points — on 9-of-12 shooting — and seven rebounds spoke for themselves, but the four assists? The four steals? Drawing 10 fouls, two more than every other Tar Heel combined? The umpteen dives on the floor for loose balls? The way he has immediately, seamlessly, become the player who can spark the entire Dean Smith Center?
That is not normal for any freshman.
Which, compared to the other star freshman in Friday’s game — Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, a top-three national recruit and the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft — is saying something. Peterson was solid, finishing with a team-best 22 points, but even Self said Wilson was “the best player, probably, in the game.”
That wasn’t an accident, if you ask Wilson, who said he regularly changes his phone background “to make sure I’m pissed when I go out there.”
On Friday, Wilson’s background was him dejected after the McDonald’s All-American game, when he was teammates with Peterson and took only four shots to Peterson’s 14.
Wilson scored 12 of UNC’s 29 first-half points, almost singularly keeping the Tar Heels in the game at times.
After halftime, the rest of Davis’ roster showed up in significant ways. Arizona transfer Henri Veesaar, the 7-footer, had back-to-back dunks out of the break en route to a 20-point night. Then, Trimble, Davis’ lone returning rotation player, scored back-to-back transition buckets to make it an 8-0 UNC run after intermission. Point guard Kyan Evans, who admitted he had a “bad” first half, started ripping pinpoint passes and finding Veesaar in the pick-and-roll; he finished with 12 points, three assists and two steals.
In less than six minutes, UNC rattled off a 23-9 run that erased Kansas’ 8-point halftime lead and gave the Tar Heels a 6-point cushion.
Most of the second half, frankly, was a clinic: UNC found whichever big was open inside, moved around the perimeter and created dunks or wide-open kickouts.
Caleb Wilson was COOKING tonight 🧑🍳
24 PTS | 7 REB | 4 STL pic.twitter.com/LB2KfkauBP
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) November 8, 2025
The Tar Heels shot over 50 percent from the field — the first time they’ve done so against a ranked team in Davis’ tenure and stopped turning it over, too, after 10 first-half giveaways. It was, in many ways, exactly what Davis envisioned when he built this roster. A team that is long, versatile and tough enough to grind through a rough first 20 minutes.
A team, many UNC fans hope, that is capable of a deep postseason run.
“What’ve we got, 40 games this year to make it to the national championship?” Wilson said. “It’s game two. Got too much ahead.”
When the final buzzer sounded, Wilson was the first player in front of UNC’s student section, waving his arms to froth up the fans. Then Davis watched as Wilson, Trimble and the lot giddily ran through the tunnel — the one he wished he could’ve run through — to celebrate. Before Davis could leave the court, though, a security guard pointed him toward the student section. Someone wanted to say something.
Williams, who’d hobbled into the Smith Center right before tip-off, with a crutch supporting his right side.
Williams pulled his successor close and shared a few words. Davis kissed Williams on the cheek, then Williams patted the back of Davis’ head and sent him on his way. Davis slowly walked through the tunnel, head down, soaking in his most significant nonconference victory in years.
A special night in the Smith Center. pic.twitter.com/Lw2cGqrIu7
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) November 8, 2025
A few minutes later, when the throngs had died down, Williams made that same walk, surrounded by his wife and several friends. A passerby called out to him: Glad you made it tonight, Roy!
“Me too,” Williams said, beaming. “Me too.”
