'He's Deserving of Being Remembered Forever': Hubert Davis Reacts to Seth Trimble's Game-Winner, UNC's Win over Duke

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Seth Trimble’s game winning three-pointer with 0.4 seconds on the clock not only lifted No. 14 North Carolina past No. 4 Duke, 71-68, but also himself into UNC immortality in his final game against the Blue Devils in the Smith Center. 

“That shot was made by the perfect person at the right time,” Hubert Davis said after the game. “He’s deserving of being remembered forever.”

Davis gave Trimble his flowers for the final shot, but also praised the collective effort of all his Tar Heel players to overcome an 11-point second-half deficit and come back to knock off No. 4 Duke. 

Watch Davis’ postgame press conference in full below and scroll to read noteworthy excerpts.

How did UNC find a way to finally overcome the deficit in the second half and was there any message you said throughout the half? 

“Yeah, (that) we’d continue to fight. We were down, but I think one of the things that we were missing is we didn’t join the fight. Every 50/50 loose ball they were getting, whether the ball was going up in the air on the ground, they were the first ones to get it. And we just continue to stick to it anytime, every time that we got knocked down, not only did we get back up, we kept taking a step forward. And as we continue to cut into the lead, our confidence just got better on both ends of the floor.”

“And then Henri stepped up. He had zero defensive rebounds in the first half. He had a double-double for the second half. And so his ability to dominate points in the paint for us was huge, and Caleb kept us around in the first half, and then Henri, Derek hit some threes, Seth, other guys joined the party, and it was a team effort.”

What did you look for on the final play and was Trimble a main option or a release valve? 

“No, there were a number of options… wanted to get something to the basket, Derek was able to do that. We love putting Caleb in ball screens and rim running and rolling towards the basket. It’s a nice luxury to have a big like Henri that can pop in those situations. And we work on this, one of the options is, if the defender comes in, it’s skipped to the opposite corner. And Derek’s pass was amazing. He looked, checked down all options, and the one option that was open, his defender came over and helped. We skipped it to the corner and we work on that every day.”

What did you think of Caleb Wilson’s performance?

“He basically put us on his back in the first half. I felt like, for whatever reason, I just felt like we were a little tight or a little too amped up. And as a result of that, I felt like we were making mistakes on both ends of the floor… He’s the one that kept us close. And his confidence, his ability.. he doesn’t talk about ‘me’. He never talks about ‘me.’ He’s always talking about ‘we’ and he’s always talking about ‘the’, which is the University of North Carolina men’s basketball.”

Was there anything you said at halftime that motivated them in the second half? 

“It’s all them, nothing by me, nothing. The wins go to them and the losses go to me. It is what it is, and it’s all them. So it was great. We talked about the mistakes that we’re making, that we can fix those mistakes, and we have the ability to make changes. So that’s that’s a good thing when you have problems and you can fix them… we just started to execute on both ends of the floor and I felt confident that we can get back in the game.”

How important was the poise for Derek Dixon on that final play and Wilson early on in their first Duke game? 

“Obviously, being at this level, being at North Carolina, and playing in these type of games, the light is bright and there’s nowhere to hide. Caleb and Derek, they don’t run from it. They run towards it.”