A Change Coming In Chapel Hill?

You are what you allow.

Whether you are parenting, leading a business, running a non-profit, or managing a local

recreation league, you are what you allow the organization to be.

And what North Carolina basketball has been allowed to be under coach Hubert Davis is not the Carolina way.

Flawed From the First

The decision to hire Davis as head coach in Chapel Hill was flawed from the first.

When Roy Williams retired after the 2020-2021 season, the opportunity to infuse new blood

and fresh ideas into the Carolina basketball program was at hand. Athletics Director Bubba

Cunningham announced the school was initiating a nation-wide search to replace Coach

Williams. For those worries that the program had shown early stages of stagnation, this

appeared to be a natural opportunity to reboot the program.

But what happened was Roy hand-selecting Davis as successor to the Carolina Kingdom even though Davis had never been a head coach before. North Carolina is a top tier college

basketball program by almost any metric. Wins, NCAA tournament appearances, Final Fours, national championships, etc. etc. etc, and more on that below. It’s a Ferrari in the sport of college hoops. Yet a driver who had never driven a car was handed the keys to a Ferrari. It never made much logical sense.

The Hubert Davis Era

In five years as head coach, there have been highs and lows. The most consistent element of

the Davis tenure is inconsistency.

Year one was an extremely mediocre season that likely would have ended without an NCAA

tournament appearance until catching fire the last game of the regular season at Duke and

those flames lasted until quenched in the second half of the national title game against Kansas. Year two started as the preseason number one team and ended dreadfully with zero

postseason. Year three was the closest season Davis’ teams measured up to the Carolina

standard – regular season ACC champs, a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, finishing in the Sweet Sixteen. Year four was a bubble team with the Heels being the last team in the NCAA field and a First Round exit. And year five just concluded with no ACC hardware, a six seed in the NCAA tournament and another First Round exit collapsing to VCU in the largest First Round blown lead in tournament history.

The Hubert Davis advocates point to things like the 2022 NCAA tournament run, the 1 seed in 2024, and wins over Duke, including on Coach K Day and in the Final Four. His overall winning percentage is a shade under 70%. He made the NCAA tournament four out of five seasons. He is a UNC alumnus, he played for Dean Smith, was an assistant for Roy Williams, and his uncle, Walter Davis, is a Carolina and NBA legend. By all accounts, Hubert is a great person who is personally well-liked and does not curse.

But on the other hand, Carolina has failed to advance past the First Round of the NCAA

tournament three out of the last four seasons. The Tar Heels have had double-digit loss seasons three out of five years. It has spent as much time outside the top 25 as inside the top 25. And the inexplicable losses, no-shows, wild swings from game to game, and even within a game. Not to mention spotty talent evaluations on the recruiting front.

The Carolina Way

Dean Smith coined the phrase and wrote the book, “The Carolina Way.” Smith’s principles and philosophy as a coach and mentor shaped the Carolina basketball program over thirty-six seasons. These life lessons and leadership principles became known as The Carolina Way.

In addition to Smith’s leadership principles, under his leadership, the Carolina basketball

program won 78% of its games, 2 national titles, reached 11 Final Fours, won 13 ACC

tournament titles, and 17 ACC regular season titles. Roy Williams followed that up with 3

national titles, 5 final fours, 3 ACC tournament titles, and 9 ACC regular season titles. Williams won 75% of his games in eighteen seasons in Chapel Hill.

In total, North Carolina boasts 6 NCAA national championships, 21 Final Fours, 18 ACC

tournament championships, 33 ACC regular season championships, and 8 national players of

the year. Carolina is third all-time in total wins behind Kentucky and Kansas. And here are two of the most extreme stats you’ll see in the post-Wooden era: from 1981 through 1993, the Tar Heels reached thirteen straight Sweet Sixteens, and from 1991 through 2000, Carolina reached the Final Four six out of ten years.

That level of success happens because of extreme levels of consistency. That level of consistent success is the Carolina way.

Not Meeting the Standard

Davis’ record on its face looks solid. Many programs would be happy to have it. But on balance, it is arguably the worst five-year period in sixty years. It is simply not on par with where North

Carolina basketball has been.

Carolina basketball is a top program in hoops history and it should value itself to that standard. As was stated above, you are what you allow. If you allow bubble team seasons, if you allow not being in the Top 25, if you allow double-digit loss seasons, if you allow early NCAA tournament exits, and if you allow inexplicable stretches of inconsistency, a single instance becomes a pattern and a pattern becomes a trend and a trend becomes an identity. The brand erodes.

Moving Forward: TBD

As of this writing, the chatter about Hubert Davis’ future in Chapel Hill is a fever pitch. Upon

returning to Chapel Hill after the first round loss to VCU, Inside Carolina reports that the

temperature of the conversations about Davis’ future changed after the collapse to VCU and

sources around the program believe a coaching change will likely be made. If these reports are true, backchannel conversations are likely taking place with phone calls to agents gauging the interest of their clients in the job.

But who could Carolina get?

That question is often a weapon used by Davis’ advocates. I honestly do not know, but I do not believe the risk of making a coaching change should lock the program into below standard paralysis. Again, you are what you allow. If you stay the course and run it back another year, it means another sub-par year is baked into the cake of what Carolina basketball is.

Until UNC administration announces that Hubert Davis is no longer the basketball coach in

Chapel Hill, it is too early to start throwing out names of potential replacements. But if and

when that announcement is made, we’ll give you a list of names the Tar Heels should target.

Until then, the Carolina Kingdom awaits word from the Hill.