Five Things To Know About Carolina’s Coaching Change
By David Glenn
Here are five things to know about North Carolina’s decision to end Hubert Davis’ head coaching tenure in Chapel Hill and seek out his successor:
1. The roughly five-day period stretching from UNC’s season-ending loss to VCU through the university’s announcement of a coaching change included a whirlwind of activity.
UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts and long-time athletic director Bubba Cunningham had heard plenty of complaints about Davis a year ago, after the Tar Heels barely made the NCAA Tournament — as a #11 seed, competing in the oft-derided “First Four” — via the event’s final at-large invitation. The critics also vividly remembered Davis’ disastrous 2022-23 campaign, when the Heels became the first preseason #1 team ever to miss the Big Dance entirely.
Then, when Carolina ended this season on a three-game losing streak, capped by a truly unprecedented collapse against VCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last Thursday, the revised UNC hierarchy — Roberts, Cunningham and AD-in-waiting Steve Newmark — were hit with an avalanche of negativity, including from some of the biggest-money boosters, who in today’s Name-Image-Likeness world can directly impact the budget for next year’s basketball roster.
In the history of the NCAA Tournament, no team had ever blown a 19-point lead in a first-round game, as the Tar Heels did against VCU. In the history of UNC basketball, the Heels are now 48-2 in the Big Dance when leading by double-digits at halftime. Both infamous collapses came under Davis — against Kansas in the 2022 national championship game (Carolina led 40-25 at the break), and then to the Rams (39-28 halftime lead) in the first round this year.
On Saturday, Cunningham met with Davis. On Sunday, Roberts, Cunningham and Newmark met and discussed their options. On Monday, at Cunningham’s request, Davis provided his plan for UNC’s basketball future. Later in the day, the coach and AD discussed that plan. On Tuesday, Cunningham and Newmark recommended a coaching change to Roberts, who gave his stamp of approval. Davis then was informed of the decision, which was announced Tuesday night.
The final wording of UNC’s release — “leadership change” — intentionally avoided the use of the terms “firing” and/or “dismissal,” out of respect for Davis, a beloved alum and former player, although Davis’ public statement made clear that he wanted to continue in his position but was not given that option.
“Tonight, I was let go by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill,” Davis posted on his Instagram account. “My desire was to continue to coach here. … I am very proud of what we were able to accomplish together. My goal is to coach again in the near future.”
UNC’s Hubert Davis coaches his players during a timeout against VCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Mar. 12, 2026. (Photo by Todd Melet/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Although it truly was a matter of semantics in some cases, during UNC’s 73 years as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the university had never officially fired any of its head coaches in men’s basketball.
Dean Smith (1997), Bill Guthridge (2000) and Roy Williams (2021) all retired from the job. Frank McGuire and Matt Doherty technically resigned in 1961 and 2003, respectively, although it was clear that each would have been fired had he not agreed to describe his departure as a resignation.
Regardless of the terminology, UNC announced that it would honor the terms of Davis’ contract, which calls for a buyout of more than $5 million when the coach is fired without cause (meaning just for not winning enough, rather than for a violation of the contract’s terms), as was the case here.
2. Davis was stunned to learn that his job was in jeopardy, and he made an emotional plea to remain with the Tar Heels.
All coaches, in one way or another, recommend to their players and staff to “block out the noise,” on social media and otherwise, with the goal of minimizing unnecessary distractions and keeping the focus on the tasks at hand.
According to just about everyone who knows Davis well, he took his own personal version of “tunnel vision” to such an extreme that it often served him well but sometimes left him completely oblivious to obvious things — in this case, even his own job security.
According to multiple sources, Davis seemed stunned when he first realized he might not be permitted to return next season.
Apparently, Davis had sincerely believed that his five-year body of work — an average record of 25-11, a 69 percent success rate in ACC games (same as Williams), four NCAA Tournament bids, a trip to the national championship game in 2022, an ACC regular-season title and a top-10 national finish in 2024, even a 24-6 record and top-25 ranking prior to star freshman Caleb Wilson’s season-ending injury here in 2026 — essentially assured that he’d be back for a sixth season in Chapel Hill, despite his well-documented shortcomings.
Obviously, in the end, that was not the case.
During his five-year tenure with the Tar Heels, Davis previously had long resisted the idea that he should employ a general manager (then awkwardly handled any questions about his relationship with GM Jim Tanner, hired in 2025), tuned out suggestions that he needed to hire a “bulldog recruiter” (even if from outside the Carolina Family), repeatedly disregarded the notion that he would benefit from media training (his VCU post-game press conference was described by one UNC official as among the worst in program history) and stubbornly insisted that every member of his staff had to have worn the Carolina uniform.
Again, such “tunnel vision” served Davis well at times. In the end, though, it also led to the most unpleasant surprise of his professional career.
Hubert Davis walks off the court at the end of UNC men’s basketball’s victory against Pitt in Feb. 2025, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (Photo via AP Photo/Chris Seward.)
3. For the first time in 74 years, UNC has begun a coaching search without a member of the “Carolina Family” in mind.
In 1952, about a year before the creation of the ACC, UNC — not yet a basketball powerhouse — hired McGuire, who had just led St. John’s to the national championship game. McGuire had no previous connection to, or affiliation with, the Tar Heels.
Since then, every UNC head coach has had a previous connection to the program.
When Smith was hired in 1961, he had been an assistant to McGuire for the previous three seasons. When Guthridge took over in 1997, he had been a member of Smith’s staff for the previous 30 seasons. Doherty, hired in 2000, had played for Smith in the early 1980s. Williams, hired in 2003, had been an assistant to Smith for 10 years (1978-88) before leaving to take the Kansas job. Davis, hired in 2021, had played for Smith from 1988-92 and served as an assistant under Williams from 2012-21.
Now, for the first time in 74 years, UNC will begin a coaching search at a time when there’s simply no viable candidate from the “Carolina Family.”
There is no shortage of Carolina basketball legends out there, mind you.
Michael Jordan and Kenny Smith, for example, are plenty famous and incredibly popular former Tar Heels. Neither has ever been a coach, however, much less a head coach at the college level. Name recognition alone, without relevant high-level experience, isn’t nearly enough for this tall task.
There are plenty of still-bleeding-blue legends from Carolina’s internationally famous coaching/administrator tree, too. But while Larry Brown (85), Eddie Fogler (77), Williams (75), George Karl (74), Mitch Kupchak (71) and others can offer input, advice and/or personal connections — all while fully understanding Carolina’s unique basketball culture — they are obviously not candidates for the job.
Among the still-active, younger coaches who played at UNC, nobody has a top-notch resume to offer.
Jerry Stackhouse, now an assistant with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, failed to make a single NCAA Tournament during his five-year tenure (2019-24) at Vanderbilt. Wes Miller, who previously had great success as the head coach at UNC Greensboro, just accepted the Charlotte 49ers job after being fired at Cincinnati. King Rice just completed his 15th season as the head coach at Monmouth, a Division One program, but he’s never led the Hawks into the NCAA Tournament.
The last time UNC officials ran out of viable candidates from inside the family, they tried to force a square peg into a round hole with the hiring of Doherty, who had only a single, mediocre year of head coaching experience at Notre Dame before accepting the Carolina job in 2000. Doherty’s extremely volatile personality and unhealthy player relationships ultimately led to a behind-the-scenes mutiny and a mostly embarrassing three-year detour for the program.
Under somewhat similar circumstances, UNC won’t make a similar mistake this time.
Executive associate athletic director Steve Newmark will go through the men’s basketball head coaching search alongside Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham before taking over the full AD role in July. Newmark and Cunningham said UNC has hired an executive search firm to assist in the proceedings. (Photo via AP Photo/Aaron Beard.)
4. Dream candidate Brad Stevens probably WILL return to coaching, but now is NOT the time.
It’s hard to believe that Stevens, who took Butler to back-to-back NCAA championship games in 2010 and 2011 and later led the Boston Celtics to seven straight trips to the NBA playoffs, is still only 49 years old.
Stevens opted to leave his head coaching position in Boston for the franchise’s general manager role in 2021. Under his leadership, the Celtics quickly made the NBA finals in 2022 (their first appearance there since 2010) and captured the NBA title in 2024, when Stevens received the league’s Executive of the Year honor.
A married father of two, Stevens has a universally celebrated combination of youth, intelligence, humility, people skills, business acumen and comfortable-in-his-own-skin authenticity to go with his obvious coaching and leadership abilities. He’s the extremely rare candidate who truly checks every box, including from the UNC perspective, and the silent consensus in the basketball world is that he will return to coaching one day.
Nevertheless, Stevens has told friends for years that he absolutely will not consider any coaching opportunity — at any level — until both of his children are off to college. Indeed, the idea was quashed less than 12 hours after Davis’ departure with CBS Sports reporting Stevens would not be leaving the Celtics.
In 2021, Indiana University prepared a seven-year, $70 million offer for Stevens, who was born and raised in the state and whose parents still reside in Indianapolis. (His father played football for the Hoosiers, and Brad attended many IU sporting events while growing up.) At the time of the Hoosiers’ advances, though, Stevens’ son was in high school, and his daughter was in middle school. He quickly and politely declined, even specifying publicly that he never received an “official” offer from IU because the parties’ brief conversations never reached that point.
Five years later, Stevens’ son is in college, but his daughter is still a high school junior. That’s why at least one key UNC decision-maker has known, all along, that Stevens — clearly a “dream coach” for the Tar Heels (and many others) — would not be a viable candidate in this year’s coaching carousel.
5. The coaching carousel can be crazy and unpredictable, so buckle up!
Warning: Anything written here could become outdated in a matter of days, hours, even minutes.
However, some aspects of this framework are more predictable than others.
For example, whether because of buyout numbers, off-the-court complications or both, Florida’s Todd Golden ($16 million buyout) and Alabama’s Nate Oats ($10 million buyout starting April 1) are highly unlikely targets for UNC, despite their impressive on-court success.
Meanwhile, regarding that increasingly famous make-them-say-no list, legendary Villanova coach Jay Wright (will turn 65 this year) is much closer to Stevens on the likelihood spectrum, whereas Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan (60 years old and a two-time NCAA champion at Florida in 2006 and 2007) reportedly would be willing to listen to a pitch from the Tar Heels.
One potential complication there, of course, is that the all-important NCAA transfer portal window opens April 7, and the NBA regular season doesn’t end until April 12. UNC needs a head coach and a detailed portal plan in place by April 1 at the latest.
The other candidates most likely to be targeted by the Tar Heels are currently college head coaches, including Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Michigan’s Dusty May, Iowa State’s TJ Otzelberger, Iowa’s Ben McCollum, Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland and Vanderbilt’s Mark Byington.
Each is in his late 40s or early 50s, with varying levels of NCAA Tournament experience and success, and with buyouts ranging from about $4 million to about $11 million. Lloyd, May, Otzelberger and McCollum are still coaching in the Big Dance, with the possibility of reaching the Final Four (April 4 and 6), adding one more potential complication to UNC’s ongoing search for Davis’ successor.
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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