R. J. Davis (born October 21, 2001) is an American

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

player for the

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the ''Tar Heel ...

of the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC).

High school career

Davis attended

Archbishop Stepinac High School Archbishop Stepinac High School is an American all-boys' Roman Catholic high school in White Plains, New York. It was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York until the 2009–2010 school year, when it became independent of the ...

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

. He led the Crusaders to a 27–5 record and the CHSAA city championship as well as the New York State Federation championship during his sophomore season. However, he suffered an injury as a sophomore which kept him from playing in the summer circuit. As a junior, Davis averaged 25.4 points, seven rebounds, four assists and 1.7 steals per game. Davis was named

The Journal News ''The Journal News'' is a newspaper in New York (state), New York State serving the New York counties of Westchester County, New York, Westchester, Rockland County, New York, Rockland, and Putnam County, New York, Putnam, a region known as the H ...

Westchester/Putnam Player of the Year and helped the team reach the city championship game. He averaged 26.5 points, eight rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.1 steals per game as a senior. Davis was named a

McDonald's All-American McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger ...

as well as Mr. New York Basketball.

Recruiting

Considered a four-star

recruit __NOTOC__ Recruit can refer to: Military * Military recruitment * Recruit training, in the military * '' Rekrut'' (English: Recruit), a military recruit or low rank in German-speaking countries * Seaman recruit Books *''Le Réquisitionnaire'' (E ...

, Davis was ranked 197th by

247Sports 247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount. The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite b ...

in early 2019, but rose in most recruiting services' and was ranked No. 43 in the Class of 2020 according to

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. Davis committed to playing

for

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

in October 2019, choosing the Tar Heels over Georgetown, Marquette and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

College career

Freshman

As a freshman, Davis averaged 8.4 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game while shooting 35.0 percent from the floor. He was named to the All-

Academic Team. He made ten starts in 29 appearances in his freshman year.

Sophomore

A starter all season, Davis was a member of the "Iron Five" starting lineup that led North Carolina on an improbable run to the 2022 Final Four alongside

Armando Bacot Armando Linwood Bacot Jr. (born March 6, 2000) is an American college basketball player for the North Carolina Tar Heels of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). He holds the program records for double-doubles and career rebounds. High school ca ...

Brady Manek Brady Reece Manek (born September 4, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Perth Wildcats of the National Basketball League (NBL). He played college basketball for the Oklahoma Sooners and the North Carolina Tar Heels. Ear ...

Caleb Love Caleb Khristopher Love (born September 27, 2001) is an American college basketball player for the Arizona Wildcats of the Pac-12 Conference. He spent his first three seasons at North Carolina, where he was a starter and key piece of the team's 2 ...

, and

Leaky Black Rechon Malik "Leaky" Black (born June 14, 1999) is an American basketball player for the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA), on a two-way contract with the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League. He played collegiately fo ...

. On November 13, 2021, he scored a then-career-high 26 points in a 94–87 win against

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

. Davis broke his career high in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, scoring 30 points in the Tar Heels' 93–86 upset victory against Baylor. He became the first Tar Heel to score 30 points and post 5 rebounds and 5 assists in an NCAA tournament game.

Junior

After the Tar Heels' run to the national championship game in the season prior, Davis, Black, Bacot, and Love all decided to return to Chapel Hill. Despite the team's preseason No.1 ranking, the Tar Heels struggled all season, missing the NCAA tournament and going 23–10 overall. Davis started all but one game in the 2022–23 season, and his lone appearance off the bench came on UNC's Senior Day, where it is tradition for all seniors being honored to start the game. He improved off of many of his statistics from the previous season, averaging 16.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game.

Senior

Davis announced that he was returning to Carolina for his senior season on March 24, 2023.

Career statistics

College

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2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

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, 29 , , 10 , , 22.3 , , .350 , , .323 , , .821 , , 2.3 , , 1.9 , , .7 , , .1 , , 8.4 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2021–22 , style="text-align:left;",

, 39 , , 39 , , 33.9 , , .425 , , .367 , , .833 , , 4.3 , , 3.6 , , 1.0 , , .2 , , 13.5 , - , style="text-align:left;",

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

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, 33 , , 32 , , 35.0 , , .438 , , .362 , , .881 , , 5.1 , , 3.2 , , 1.1 , , .1 , , 16.1 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , , 101 , , 81 , , 31.0 , , .414 , , .355 , , .850 , , 4.0 , , 3.0 , , .9 , , .1 , , 12.9

References

External links

North Carolina Tar Heels bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, R. J. 2001 births Living people American men's basketball players Archbishop Stepinac High School alumni Basketball players from Westchester County, New York McDonald's High School All-Americans North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball players Point guards Sportspeople from White Plains, New York