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Hubert Davis just turned 54. How does he compare?
Let’s see, Hubert has been Carolina’s head coach for three years and has an 78-31 record and ACC mark of 43-17, both for winning rates of 72 percent. He has finished second, 8th and 1st in the conference, won one regular-season championship with an ACC tournament record of 4-3 and zero titles. He has gone to two NCAA Tournaments with a 7-2 record and made one Final Four appearance. His record against Duke is 4-3, winning twice at Cameron Indoor Stadium and, of course, once in the 2022 Final Four.
When Roy Williams turned 54, he had finished his first season at Carolina as a head coach after serving 15 years at Kansas, where he had taken the Jayhawks to consecutive Final Fours. His first Tar Heel team went 19-11 overall and 8-8 in the ACC, lost in the first round of the ACC Tournament and second round of the NCAA Tournament. He then won his first of nine ACC regular-season titles and first of three NCAA championships when he was still 54 (birthday August 1).
Dean Smith turned 54 in February of 1985 and went on to win his fourth consecutive ACC regular season championship and reached the 11th of 23 straight NCAA Tournaments, a record that Michigan State’s Tom Izzo tied this past season. Smith retired after the 1997 season with a major-college high of 879 victories (also 77 percent), a ceiling later surpassed by Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski.
At 54, Hubert Davis has had one consensus All-American player, R.J. Davis. At that age, Roy Williams had yet to have his first at UNC, although he did have a consensus second teamer in 2005, when Sean May was the Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four that Carolina won in St. Louis.
Williams had won 470 games of a career 903 victories and would join Smith (inducted 1982) in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2019, Williams’ 31st season, he surpassed Smith’s 879 career wins in his 36.
By the time Smith was 54, he was already a Hall of Famer and had coached dozens of All-ACC and All-American players, including ACC Players of the Year Michael Jordan, Phil Ford and Larry Miller — plus UNC’s first black scholarship athlete Charlie Scott.
Smith had five children, Davis three and Williams two.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
In the article Chansky’s notebook When they were 54 there was a BIG error. You said Hubert Davis had a
3 – 3 record against Duke as the UNC coach. Hubert is 4 – 3 against Duke. Like you said he has 2 wins at Duke. Also he beat Duke in Chapel hill but I think you forgot the win over Duke in the Final four which is the All time biggest win over Duke ever and you forgot it!!
“All time biggest win over Duke ever”
Needs to be said again.
Thank you, will edit!
There is no way to compare the three with that type of metric. What can be said without question:
All three coaches loved Carolina and loved their players. All three coaches treat the players like family. All three coaches support the university programs. And all three plus Coach Guthridge were very successful.
There is little difference between the three other than circumstance prior to becoming head coach. All are great coaches. As was an unheralded head coach, coach Guthridge, who was a big part of thee Carolina head coach tradition.