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Courtney Banghart is the all-around winner Carolina needs.
Full disclosure, I have never met the UNC women’s basketball coach, only talked to her a few times during Zoom press conferences. I have, however, watched her coach and her teams play at Carmichael Arena and on TV.
From my “10,000 feet” vantage point, there could not be a better match for the Tar Heels program. And she has a style all to her own.
It is somewhere between Duke’s Kara Lawson, who does not say much at all while the game is going on, and LSU’s wild woman Kim Mulkey, who is a sideshow from her outfits to her sideline outrage.
Banghart stands most of the game, arms crossed, and communicates calmly with her players on the court. She appears to be in total control of her timeout huddles, and I have heard she can be far more vociferous in the locker room, especially at halftime of games her team is not playing particularly well.
Aside from coaching and teaching techniques, Banghart seems like she has been here more than four years. A graduate of Dartmouth, where she was an all-Ivy League 3-point shooter, and uber-successful coach at Princeton, she had either researched UNC athletics extensively or her personal and professional way of life just fit the university and town like a glove.
Kudos to Bubba Cunningham for either schooling her or recognizing that the 44-year-old Banghart was as close to perfect as possible. And not all Carolina coaches have been success stories. I won’t deep dive for anyone in particular (but Butch Davis and Sylvia Hatchell do come to mind).
UNC coaches are notorious for publicly supporting each other, so it’s not new that so many attend women’s games. A lot of them show up often, far more than perfunctorily. They are rooting for both her team and her. Home attendance has increased 44 percent, which helps any fiscally challenged Olympic program.
Banghart’s new five-year extension will keep her in Chapel Hill at least through the 2027-28 season, but it might take some kind of tsunami for her not to become a Carolina lifer. She and her spouse are raising two young kids in a local community where neighbors are as authentic about her as she is toward them.
Her last three teams made the NCAA tournament and have been in and out of the national polls. She is not afraid to say her goal is winning UNC another NCAA championship, which is unlikely in the Ivy League, despite Banghart taking eight Tiger teams to the Big Dance.
“We’ve made significant progress in bringing Carolina back into the national spotlight,” she says. “Carmichael is rocking and we’re recruiting the best of the best. And this community has totally wrapped its arms around us.”
Indeed.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
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