UNC head coach Hubert Davis received yet another coaching award on Friday. Davis was named the 2022 recipient of the John McLendon Award, presented annually to “the top head coach in all of collegiate basketball,” which includes Divisions I-III, NAIA and junior college competition.

Davis is in his first year as a head coach at any school. In his rookie season, Davis has guided Carolina to a 28-9 record and an appearance in the program’s 21st Final Four. He became the first head coach to reach the Final Four in his first season since Bill Guthridge did so with the Tar Heels in 1998.

Davis is also one of only two men in history to play in and coach in the Final Four with the same school, along with Kansas’ Dick Harp.

Davis’ award win comes after he was nominated for four other prestigious coaching honors: the Skip Prosser Award, the Joe B. Hall Award, the Jim Phelan Award and the Ben Jobe Award. As with the McLendon Award, Davis would be the first UNC coach to win any of those honors, though UNC alumnus King Rice won the McLendon Award with Monmouth in 2016.

The McLendon Award is named after a legend of North Carolina college basketball: John McLendon, who coached at North Carolina Central in Durham between 1941 and 1952 and won three consecutive NAIA titles with Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State) between 1957 and 1959. He was the first African-American coach to win an integrated national championship. North Carolina Central’s basketball arena is named in his honor, and McLendon is a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, once as a contributor and once as a coach.

Hubert Davis and the Tar Heels will play in the Final Four against Duke Saturday at 8:49 p.m. in New Orleans.

 

Featured image via Todd Melet

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