The Tar Heels entered Saturday with decisions still needing to be made about the future of the team’s top two guards from a year ago. On Saturday afternoon, the team got the news that one of those guards will be returning for his junior season in 2022-23.
Via his Twitter page, R.J. Davis announced that he will be returning to Carolina after a strong sophomore season in 2022-23. Davis averaged 13.5 points per game, 4.3 rebounds per game and 3.6 assists per game while shooting 42.5% from the field overall and 36.7% from beyond the arc. Those numbers were all substantially improved from his freshman season and came while playing the second most minutes by a Tar Heel player in a single season (1,324), trailing only his team Caleb Love in that category. That alone shows how important Davis was to the success of the team this year from start to finish and why this is such a big return for next year.
Davis’s return means that the Tar Heels will return a junior point guard for the first time since Joel Berry II returned for his junior season back in 2016-17, a season that ended with a national championship. The Tar Heels thrived down the stretch of the season with Davis bringing the ball up. He became much more consistent in that role and Love was as well in off the ball role as a result. The hope is that the two will be able to build on that late season success that got this team to the doorstep of a national title.
His return leaves Love as the only player that still needs to make his decision ahead of tomorrow’s 2022 NBA Draft entry deadline. The deadline is tomorrow night at 11:59 PM and we will have you covered whenever that decision comes down over the next day and a half.
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