UNC’s RJ Davis Adds to Collection With Jerry West Award
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina senior standout RJ Davis has added another headlining honor to his collection as the winner of the Jerry West Award, which recognizes the top shooting guard in Division I men’s college basketball each season.
The award was presented Saturday by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Phoenix, as part of the Final Four festivities there. Davis, a consensus first-team All-America selection this season, was crowned ACC Player of the Year last month. He was picked as the Jerry West recipient ahead of other finalists Caleb Love of Arizona, Kevin McCullar Jr. of Kansas, Antonio Reeves of Kentucky, and Tyson Walker of Michigan State.
Additional honors given out Saturday included the Bob Cousy Award (Connecticut’s Tristen Newton, top point guard), Julius Erving Award (Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, top small forward), Karl Malone Award (San Diego State’s Jaedon LeDee, top power forward), and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award (Purdue’s Zach Edey, top center). On Sunday, the 7-foot-4 Edey became the first repeat winner of the Naismith College Player of the Year honor in more than 40 years.
The Jerry West Award is in its 10th year. Previous winners are Marcus Sasser of Houston (2023), Johnny Davis of Wisconsin (2022), Chris Duarte of Oregon (2021), Myles Powell of Seton Hall (2020), RJ Barrett of Duke (2019), Carsen Edwards of Purdue (2018), Malik Monk of Kentucky (2017), Buddy Hield of Oklahoma (2016), and D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State (2015).
The 6-foot, 180-pound Davis emerged in a starring role and became the ACC’s scoring champion this season, despite the extra attention and physicality opposing teams loaded up to employ against him defensively. His 21.2 points per game, 3.6 rebounds per game, 3.5 assists per game, and career-best numbers from 3-point range (113 makes and 39.8-percent shooting) helped power the Tar Heels to their first outright ACC regular-season title in seven years. UNC finished 29-8 overall, including 17-3 in the league.
The legendary Phil Ford is the only Carolina guard who has produced more career points than Davis (2,088 points, fifth all-time in program history). Davis is the only Tar Heel ever to compile at least 2,000 points, 500 rebounds, 400 assists, 250 successful 3-pointers and 100 steals during his college career.
Davis’ scoring average this season marked the highest output for any UNC player since Tyler Hansbrough’s 22.6 points per game in the 2007-08 season. He set the UNC season record for successful 3-pointers, eclipsing Justin Jackson’s previous standard from the 2016-17 season. Davis scored 20 points or more in 23 games this season, and supplied 25 points or more on 11 occasions. He erupted for 36 points on Wake Forest in January. He poured in a career-high seven 3-pointers to fuel his 42-point masterclass against Miami in late February, a booming effort that surpassed Hansbrough’s scoring record at the 38-year-old Smith Center.
But things crashed to an end 10 nights ago, the Tar Heels falling 89-87 to Alabama in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, a stinging loss bringing perhaps the final curtain of Davis’ college career. He missed all of his nine attempts beyond the 3-point arc against the high-scoring Crimson Tide, and the down-in-flames nature of his 4-for-20 shooting struggle from the field in the No. 1 seed Tar Heels’ narrow loss hit him hard.
“I just wasn’t good enough,” Davis said that night in the UNC locker room, with the season-ending finality descending at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. “I didn’t make enough shots. Came up short, so I could’ve done better. And it hurts. Because I know it won’t be the same group, and you’re not going to get this type of group back again. So it’s tough to put into perspective.”
Davis said, “I just love putting on this jersey, love playing for Coach (Hubert) Davis and the rest of the coaching staff, and playing for the Carolina fans,” as he sat there quietly answering questions from reporters in the locker room. He said “it’s hard to find a team like this” about the Tar Heels, the ACC regular-season champs, who ultimately left other significant stated goals such as winning the ACC Tournament and making a Final Four return unfulfilled.
“A lot of us are emotional,” he said, “because we really believed that we could really go all the way. And we just came up short.
“This year has been probably the most fun I’ve had, just from a team perspective. This group is hard to get back, just because of all the personalities we had on this team. The funny moments, the togetherness. Going out to eat, stuff like that. The team chemistry was real. And you can see everyone’s so emotional because everyone had full belief that we could go far, just because of how special this team was. That just shows how much of a team we really are, how much care and belief we have in one another.”
