029: Durability of Carolina's guards
Caleb Love and RJ Davis have played together a lot over the past three seasons.
Over the past three men’s collegiate basketball seasons, only nine players have appeared in 100 or more games and played 3,000 or more minutes1.
Two of those players were on North Carolina’s roster.
Caleb Love has played 3,313 minutes over 101 career games. Love’s teammate, now former teammate, RJ Davis has played 3,123 minutes over 101 career games.
Using bigballR to parse play-by-play data over the past 101 games, we can compute the number of possessions Love and Davis played with each other or without each other. This is raw data meaning time on and off the court parsed by the play-by-play.
2020-21 season
As freshmen, Love and Davis only played 27.2 percent of possessions together. Love led the team in minutes (802). Davis played only 38 more minutes than Kerwin Walton in Roy Williams last season as head coach. And Carolina’s most popular lineup over the 29-game COVID season featured Walton, not Davis.
2021-22 season
In the first season under head coach Hubert Davis, Carolina leaned on its iron-five lineup that included a Love and Davis backcourt. The iron-five played 2,198 possessions together. The next closest lineup, which also included Love and Davis, played only 321 possessions. This resulted in ~72 percent of possessions with the two guards on the court together.
2022-23 season
75 percent of Carolina possessions this past season had both Love and Davis on the court at the same time. The most frequently played lineup without Love, but with Davis, played just 71 total possessions. And the most frequently played lineup without Davis, but with Love, played only 56 total possessions.
So, what does it all mean?
Caleb Love announced plans to transfer to Michigan last month. RJ Davis plans to return for his fourth season at Carolina. The two won’t be in the court together moving forward.
There is plenty to ponder about the player’s shot selection or roles on the court. It feels like an overlooked part of both of the guards play is their durability.
Because Love and Davis are the only two players to appear in every Carolina game over the past three seasons. All 101.
Consider that Caleb Love and RJ Davis have both played more minutes as Tar Heels in three seasons than Donald Williams (2,901 minutes) and Danny Green (2,889 minutes) did in four seasons.
The pair played a lot together. And that will change, which might be one of the more intriguing items to look out for next season.
Check out the code to make this area plot. The data is scraped from the NCAA using bigballR. Thanks for reading along.
Uses sports-reference’s play index: http://cbbref.com/tiny/1ofeB