Since leading North Carolina on a shocking run to the 2022 national championship game, in his first year as a head coach, Hubert Davis has failed to meet the program’s lofty standards over the past four seasons.
There was one other outstanding campaign, in 2024, when the Tar Heels won 29 games, captured the ACC regular-season championship, competed in the ACC title game, and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
But Davis’ job status became a hot topic during this year’s version of March Madness because his 2023, 2025 and 2026 teams fell far short of the bar set over the past half-century-plus by Hall of Fame coaches Dean Smith and Roy Williams.
During his 36 seasons in charge, Smith led the Tar Heels to two NCAA titles, 11 Final Fours, 17 regular-season ACC championships, 13 ACC Tournament titles and countless other accomplishments.
Similarly, during his 18 campaigns at the helm, Williams led the Heels to three NCAA titles, five Final Fours, nine regular-season ACC championships, three ACC Tournament titles, and lots of other success.
Interestingly, Williams’ final four seasons as the leader in Chapel Hill looked a lot like Davis’ four most recent campaigns: one very good year (2019), one embarrassing year (2020), and two mediocre years (2018, 2021).
Williams’ 2019 highlights — 29 victories, an ACC regular-season title and a Sweet 16 trip — mirrored Davis’ 2024 season in many ways. Similarly, Williams’ 2020 disaster, which ended with a 14-19 record, ultimately served as a parallel to Davis’ 2023 debacle, when the Tar Heels became the first team in modern college basketball history to go from a preseason #1 ranking to missing the NCAA Tournament entirely.
At the end of his more-down-than-up stretch from 2018 through 2021, Williams unilaterally decided that those results weren’t good enough, and he opted to retire.
Five years later, after his extremely volatile past four years, Davis found himself waiting for others to make that decision for him.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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