Associated Press

North Carolina forward Ed Davis (32) averages 14 points and 9.6 rebounds per game and leads the ACC with 2.7 blocked shots per game.

Ed Davis led his high school to a pair of Virginia Independent Schools titles.

As a freshman last season, he helped North Carolina win the NCAA championship.

Now he's part of a struggling team.

UNC, which visits Virginia Tech at 9 tonight, has lost four of its past five games. Three of those defeats came at home, including Sunday's 75-60 loss to Virginia.

"We're real anxious just to play again, get this bad taste out of our mouth," said Davis, one of the best post players in the ACC. "We're just really not executing, paying little attention to detail. ... So we're in this sort of slump.

"It's something I'm not used to, something I don't want to get used to."

Davis will be a big concern for Virginia Tech (16-4, 3-3) tonight. The Richmond native had 20 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots to help the Tar Heels beat the visiting Hokies 78-64 on Jan. 10.

But that was one of only two games that North Carolina (13-8, 2-4) won last month.

"We know our record and we know that we're not playing well at all," Davis said. "Watching ESPN, they talk about it every day, so you can't avoid it."

The UVa game marked the first time the Tar Heels lost a home game by at least 15 points since Roy Williams became their head coach. Such a loss happened to Williams just three times in his previous stop at Kansas, including once to a Long Beach State team steered by current Hokies coach Seth Greenberg.

Williams said he is "at wit's end."

"The things that I've preached this year -- the same as those 21 [previous years] -- haven't worked. So I've got to find a different way to do it," Williams said. "All the teams have always bought into what I said, and it seemed to work. It hasn't seemed to work as well this year, so we've got to keep trying.

"If we invest a little bit more, maybe we'll build those habits that need to be there on game night.

"I didn't think even early in the [UVa] game ... we were really into the game. It was almost like we were just going to play it because we had to play, as opposed to just loving game night. ... Teams in the past, I've been able to have that attitude, and so far with this one I have not."

UNC lost Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green from last year's championship team.

Still, the Tar Heels entered January with an 11-3 mark that included wins over Michigan State and Ohio State. Their only losses at that point were to Syracuse, Kentucky and Texas.

The Tar Heels have lost five times since then, including once at the College of Charleston.

This is the first time UNC has lost four of its first six ACC games since 2002-03, when it finished 6-10 in league play in Matt Doherty's final season at the helm.

"We're just not playing up to our potential at all," Davis said. "We can't replace Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson and Wayne and Danny, but we do have a lot of players that do some things that they can do. We're just not executing at all."

After coming off the bench last season, Davis has assumed a starting role this season. He is averaging 14 points and ranks second in the ACC in rebounding (9.6 per game).

"Ed Davis is just magnificent," said Greenberg, whose team has lost to UNC five straight times. "He's long, he's agile. He scores around the basket. He can step you out [and shoot] to 15 feet. He's just a really gifted player. We've got to try to make it hard for him to catch it deep, and got to make sure that we do a good job of chesting him up and eliminating his second-chance points."

The 6-foot-10, 225-pound Davis leads the ACC in blocks (2.7 per game) and field-goal percentage (59.1 percent).

"With Tyler being gone, Ty and everybody leaving, somebody had to pick up the scoring and rebounding," Davis said. "In the offseason, I really worked hard to try to get bigger. I put on 15 pounds, so that helped me a lot."

The sophomore forward missed his team's Jan. 20 loss to Wake Forest with a sprained ankle. He has played the past two games, but wasn't able to block any shots in a win over N.C. State and blocked only one against UVa. He scored just four points against UVa, and was 1-of-3 from the field.

Davis led Benedictine to two VIS Division I state titles, and became a McDonald's All-American. He was The Roanoke Times' Mr. Basketball for the state as a senior.

Virginia Tech was the first school to start recruiting Davis, and the first to offer him a scholarship. But his final choices were UNC, Connecticut, Georgetown and UVa.

He averaged 6.7 points and 18.8 minutes last season. Davis had 11 points and eight rebounds in the NCAA championship game.

"It hasn't really sunk in to me yet. Probably once this basketball career is over with, then I'll think, 'I won the national championship my freshman year,' " Davis said.

Davis, the son of former NBA player Terry Davis, no doubt would have been a high pick in the NBA Draft last year had he decided to turn pro. But he opted to return to UNC.

"My dad always told me he wanted me to come back for my sophomore year, and I promised him," Davis said. "I like it here. ... The NBA's not going anywhere."