Davis returns to Va. to face Cavs

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- If he weren't in baby blue, he'd be a'Hoo.

That's small consolation to University of Virginia basketball coach Dave Leitao and his staff, who desperately wanted Ed Davis to be a regular at John Paul Jones Arena. The former Benedictine High star will play there tonight, but afterward Davis will head back to Chapel Hill with the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Leitao and his staff, led by assistant Steve Seymour, pursued Davis tirelessly. In the end, though, the lure of playing for one of college basketball's storied programs was too much for the Cavaliers to overcome.

"I felt bad for them, but I would have felt bad for Carolina [if Davis had picked Virginia]," Benedictine coach Sean McAloon said yesterday. "They both did a great job recruiting him."

Davis, a 6-10, 220-pound freshman, said in a phone interview this week that it won't be awkward seeing Leitao and Seymour tonight.

"I'm not really thinking about that," Davis said. "I'm just thinking about getting an ACC victory. That's the only thing that's on my mind right now."

Davis has great bloodlines -- his father, Terry, starred at Virginia Union and had a long NBA career -- and made the McDonald's All-American team as a Benedictine senior. Still, few expected him to play a prominent role for UNC as a freshman.

Roy Williams' pool of post players shrank, though, when 6-9 Alex Stepheson left Carolina after the 2007-08 school year. It got even smaller when 7-foot freshman Tyler Zeller fractured his left wrist Nov. 18 against Kentucky.

In the absence of Zeller, who's likely to miss the rest of the season, Davis has been the first big man off the bench for No. 5 UNC (0-2 ACC, 14-2), and he's capitalized on his opportunity. In about 20 minutes a game, Davis is averaging 7.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks. He's shooting 54.4 percent from the floor.

"It's a big difference from high school to college," Davis said, "but nothing I couldn't handle."

Said Leitao: "He's going to have a terrific career. He's a terrific prospect."

It hurt to lose such a coveted prospect, especially one from nearby Richmond, U.Va.'s fourth-year coach has acknowledged. But in his two-plus decades in coaching, Leitao said this week, he has learned that "you celebrate the guys that you get and you quickly forget about the ones that you don't. Every coach in America can have an 'all-what-if' team that would probably be as good a team as there is in the country. . . . You've got to forget about it in all of about 10 seconds. You've got to move on, and that's what we did."

Davis said he's adjusting well to life in Chapel Hill, where the basketball players are highly scrutinized public figures.

"Yeah, you live under a microscope," he said. "Everybody's always watching your moves, so you have to make smart decisions in everything you do."

Since August, Davis said, he's been home only once -- for Christmas. That's another reason he's looking forward to tonight's game.

"It should be fun," Davis said, "getting back to Virginia and seeing a few family members after the game."

If he plays well tonight, of course, his return may not be as fun for U.Va.
Contact Jeff White at (804) 649-6838 or .