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NEW ORLEANS — Looking back now, it was a no-brainer for North Carolina to recruit R.J. Davis. An elite guard with New York City toughness who is the all-time leading scorer in Westchester County history.
At the time, however, there were doubts around the country if the 6-foot guard from White Plains could play at the highest level.
“There were a lot of schools — a lot — that said he was not good enough,” said Pat Massaroni, Davis’ high school coach at Archbishop Stepinac. “They said he wasn’t good enough after his freshman year, after his sophomore year, after his junior year.”
Davis, some coaches told Massaroni, wasn’t a true point guard. He was too small to play off the ball. That all changed the summer before his senior year. Davis’ mentality was to prove those doubters wrong, in a summer in which he attended the top showcases nationally for high school prospects.
“I was hungry,” he said. “I wanted to go out and dominate anybody I felt wasn’t supposed to be ranked above me. It instilled fire in me.”
In that time, North Carolina spotted him, watching him during the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League in Indianapolis. Hubert Davis, then an assistant coach at North Carolina, was checking in on a number of games at the same time, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of R.J. Davis.
“He hit a 3. Then I was looking at another game and just turned around. I saw him get a steal and a lay-in,” Hubert Davis recalled. “I’m watching another game, turned around, he hit another 3. And then I kept looking and walking around to other games. And I turned around and he hit another 3.
“He just kept making winning plays every time that I watched him on the floor. And I just felt like that would be the perfect fit for us, because he was making plays on the ball and off the ball. And I just felt like that’s one of the things that we needed.”
North Carolina began recruiting him then, and extended a scholarship offer to him after his stellar showing at Peach Jam, the prestigious highlight event of the AAU season.
“It was crazy,” R.J. Davis said. “I never thought I would get interest from North Carolina.”
After a solid freshman year as a part-time starter, R.J. Davis has enjoyed a monster sophomore season, keying North Carolina’s run to the national championship game. He exploded for a career-high 30 points in the second-round upset of No. 1 Baylor and had 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists against Duke in the Final Four on Saturday. Most impressively is how he has run the team, dishing out 28 assists and committing just nine turnovers in five tournament games.
As a kid, he grew up watching the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four, dreaming about being a part of it one day. He’s living that dream this weekend. Not bad for a kid who supposedly couldn’t play at the highest level. R.J. Davis is one win away from being a national champion.
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