Hubert Davis is the kind of person you want to lead your basketball program. He's the nicest guy who loves the North Carolina program the same way that Roy Williams did. He cares so much about the Carolina Family that all his coaches are alums. As a player, he wasn't a big time recruit yet built himself into a great scorer and eventually a first round NBA draft pick. He's a great representative of North Carolina basketball.
Too bad he doesn't coach like that.
The Tar Heels lost to VCU in the first round of the NCAA tournament tonight, 82-78, in overtime. Typically one game shouldn't determine your job, but there may be no game that encapsulates the Hubert Davis era than this one. A blown lead marred by late game mistakes, missed free throws and a determination to run his players into the ground.
Again, this isn't just about one game. Since Davis took over in the 2021-2022 season, North Carolina has entered the NCAA tournament like this:
2022: 8 seed
2023: missed the tournament
2024: 1 seed
2025: 11 seed
2026: 6 seed
Add in the final two seasons of the Roy Williams era (would've missed the NCAA tournament in 2020 if COVID didn't cancel it; 8 seed that was blown out in 2021) and this has been a horrible stretch of Carolina basketball. Amazing, since the 2016-2019 stretch featured two national championship game appearances -- including the 2017 national title -- a 2 seed and a 1 seed. It hasn't looked like that since.
Carolina has lost 3 of their last 4 NCAA tournament games, with the lone win coming over San Diego State in the First Four last season. Before COVID, the Tar Heels were 31-1 in first round games (the Round of 64). Since, they are 2-3 ... with two of those losses coming in the last two years. This is the first time EVER that Carolina lost its final regular season game, only ACC tournament game, and only NCAA tournament game. A horrible 0-3 stretch that featured losses to Duke, Clemson and VCU that all featured massive runs from their opponents that ultimately sunk the Heels. come
North Carolina now owns one of the largest comeback losses in NCAA tournament history and the largest in program history. They also own the largest comeback loss in NCAA championship history when they gave up a 16-point lead to Kansas to choke away the 2022 title.
This isn't the standard at North Carolina. If Hubert Davis was virtually anyone else, he'd be fired right now. It was unacceptable with Matt Doherty was in Chapel Hill and its unacceptable now.
Sure, all-everything Caleb Wilson's injury crushed UNC's hopes on the season. He was an electric player that, honestly, may be Carolina's best NBA player since Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison entered the league in 1998. But the Heels were up on VCU by 19 points in this game and reverted to the same flaws that have plagued the Davis era. There were boneheaded turnovers ... including a unfathomable five-second call at the end of the game. Missed free throws. An opponent getting loose for a career day (something so frustrating about Davis). And an unwillingness to substitute and get his guys some rest. All of that spilled all over the floor in Greenville for the world to see what Carolina fans have watched for five years.
The Tar Heels have struggled all season with these issues ... issues that have plagued the Heels for years. UNC has choked away big leads, even if they ultimately won the game. It's been a running joke that someone on every opponent turns in a career day against the Heels. But it was the meltdown at the end of the VCU game that really hit home. Not being able to hang onto the ball, missing easy shots, a five second inbounds penalty, not knowing how to miss a free throw properly, and abandoning the principles that got you the 19-point lead to begin with. When you get to March, those kinds of mistakes should not happen yet they were amplified tonight. When it comes to March, a coach should not have to resort to not substituting because he doesn't trust the team he built.
I'm not one of those guys that have barked for Davis' job. I've tried to lean in on the "he's learning on the job and will get this" thinking for a few years now. Maybe the legendary run of the 2022 season had me blind. Beating Duke on Coach K night in Cameron and then ending Mike Krzyzewski's career at the Final Four in New Orleans will be one of the greatest feats any Carolina coach achieved. But nothing has looked anything close to that since. I've had moments where I have began to move off that stance (most notably the west coast swing earlier this season), but I've now arrived at this feeling. No matter what kind of roster Davis assembles this offseason, I just don't trust that he will be able to maximize it anymore. I saw him sink a preseason No. 1 team in 2022-2023 and waste away the the 2024-2025 season. I saw him bring in high profile transfers that didn't pan out (Cade Tyson, anyone?).
How can you trust Hubert Davis? I lived my life believing Dean Smith was the smartest coach on the floor and that Roy Williams knew his team better than any coach out there. I don't feel that way about Davis. And there are some rumbling from former players that they may not trust him either. Not enough to put Carolina back where it is supposed to be.
This all comes at a pivotal time for Carolina basketball. A new athletic director takes over very soon. There are heated discussions about what to do with the Dean E. Smith Center -- should it be replaced, renovated or even a new arena off campus. We are just a few years from conference explosions once again as the television contracts will ramp up at the start of the next decade. Will the ACC be able to survive or will North Carolina need to jump to the Big Ten or SEC? Meanwhile, the school down the street has been able to keep their standard of excellence with their former (and young) player who keeps churning out No. 1 seeds and top players.
Carolina isn't holding up to the standard.
Like the arena and the ACC, there may have to be some hard decisions about separating from the past if there is going to be a fruitful future. There is no Roy Williams sitting out there. Unlike when Dean Smith retired in 1997 (or Bill Guthridge retired in 2000 or Doherty's firing in 2002), there isn't a Carolina Family candidate ready to roll to keep this going. All of Dean's guys at that time (George Karl, Larry Brown, Doug Moe) aren't viable for various reasons and Roy Williams didn't exactly leave behind a coaching tree to pluck from. Hubert Davis was it, and that is seemingly failing. The only other option, Wes Miller, showed he wasn't ready for a big job after being fired from Cincinnati.
North Carolina may need to go outside the family to find the coach who can lead it into the future and hold the standard of the past.
When Roy retired in 2021, I was really hoping Gonzaga's Mark Few would take the job. Few is good friends with Roy, a wildly successful coach in a college basketball outpost that could have continued Carolina's winning ways. That is unlikely now, given Few's age and unlikeliness to leave the Zags as they enter the Pac-12. Could UNC lure Al Golden away from Florida? Would Alabama's Nate Oates be an option? How about Iowa State's T.J. Otzelberger? Or one of the up-and-coming coaches who UNC could build a long future with.
Despite saying all of this, I'm doubtful any change will come. Davis is a Carolina guy who is likeable and there are just enough good moments to point to (and a Caleb Wilson injury to use as an excuse) to validate another year of this. But as Carolina fans all over the country have shouted out tonight, most aren't excited about another year of substandard basketball. No one will go into the 2026-2027 season expecting anything different.
And that's a shame.
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