2003 Top 50 List: Yes
Dan Collins List: Yes
Wake Forest went through about a ten-year dry spell from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, spanning the coaching tenure of Jack McCloskey and the first few years under Carl Tacy. The best years of that span were 1969-1971 – the three years of Charlie Davis.
- 1965: 12-15, 6-8
- 1966: 8-18, 4-10
- 1967: 9-18, 5-9
- 1968: 5-21, 3-11
- 1969: 18-9, 8-6
- 1970: 14-13, 6-8
- 1971: 16-10, 7-7
- 1972: 8-18, 3-9
- 1973: 12-15, 3-9
- 1974: 13-13, 3-9
- 1975: 13-13, 2-10
Davis made First Team All-ACC all 3 years that he played and was ACC Player of the Year as a senior. His career coincided exactly with South Carolina great John Roche, both of whom were one year behind UNC great Charlie Scott. In 1969, when Roche and Davis were sophomores and Scott was a junior, all three made First Team All-ACC, and Roche was POY. In 1970, the result was exactly the same. In 1971, with Scott gone to the NBA, Davis won POY over Roche. I’ll talk more about the POY votes in the posts on Roche and Scott.
There have been only three ACC POYs who played on a team that did not have a winning ACC record: Davis, 1971 (Wake went 7-7); Len Bias, 1986 (Maryland went 6-8); TJ Warren, 2014 (NC State went 9-9).
Davis is quite possibly the most valuable free throw shooter in the history of college basketball. I don’t think it’s an overreach to say that. When I say “most valuable free throw shooter”, I mean he combined tremendous accuracy with getting to the line a lot, thereby creating a lot of value for his team. Let me give you some numbers to substantiate that. Davis, for his career, averaged 7.3 free throws made per game. Think about that for a second. He averaged 7.3 points per game on free throws alone. That’s more than Tyler Hansbrough, more than JJ Redick, more than pretty much anyone else except the early guys like Hemric, Wilkinson, and Rosenbluth. Not only that, but Davis’ career FT% is 87.3, which is fifth in ACC history.
If that doesn’t convince you, try this. Since 1993, a span of 30 years, there have been only 16 seasons in all of college basketball in which a player shot 85+% from the line on 8+ free throw attempts per game, and nobody has done it more than once. Davis did it three times.
Only five players in ACC history have three seasons with 22+ points per game: David Thompson, Billy Cunningham, Lennie Rosenbluth, Art Heyman – and Charlie Davis.