UNC Facing Tricky Timetable With Ongoing Coaching Search
By David Glenn
On April Fools’ Day especially, it’s wise to be extra-cautious about what’s real and what’s not.
That same principle has been a necessity for Carolina basketball fans virtually every day since UNC’s 2025-26 season ended on March 19, when VCU came back from 19 points down to post a shocking 82-78 overtime victory against the Tar Heels in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Ever since March 24, when UNC announced the end of the five-year Hubert Davis era, there has been rampant speculation about “who’s next” in Chapel Hill — that’s always been a staple of the coaching carousel — as well as countless “reports” claiming inside information on this candidate or that.
On a single day, prior to April 1, there were separate social media posts insisting that (fill-in-the-blank) was poised to become the next leader of the Tar Heels. One post specified Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd. Another pointed to Michigan coach Dusty May. Yet another insisted it will be Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan. Still others pointed to former UNC star Jerry Stackhouse or even 73-year-old St. John’s coach Rick Pitino. Hah!
None of those conflicting claims was followed by an April Fools-style disclaimer. Such is the nature of modern social media (and some online media), where clicks and engagement come with significant financial incentives, often regardless of the accuracy — or inanity — of the underlying information.
Five years ago on April 1, UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham was sitting with Roy Williams as the Carolina men’s basketball legend announced his retirement. Now, Cunningham is continuing the search for the successor to Williams’ successor, Hubert Davis. (Photo by Dakota Moyer/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
With these rising tidal waves of disinformation and misinformation in mind, now seems a good time for a big-picture reality check in Chapel Hill.
It starts with the modern NBA and NCAA basketball calendars. The latter has changed truly every year in the post-COVID era, which has brought the arrival of Name-Image-Likeness money (2021), the explosion of immediately eligible transfers (gradual) and the debut of university revenue-sharing with athletes (2025).
- Saturday, April 4 — Final Four games
- Monday, April 6 — NCAA title game
- Tuesday, April 7 — NCAA transfer portal opens
- Sunday, April 12 — NBA regular season ends
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the modern-day transfer portal.
Among this year’s Sweet 16 teams, only one (Michigan State) had an entire starting lineup of single-school players. Among the Final Four participants, Michigan’s starting five has a whopping 80 percent “portal portion,” including transfers from UNC (point guard Elliot Cadeau), UAB, Texas Tech and UCLA.
In the Atlantic Coast Conference this season, whereas top-ranked Duke relied mainly on its high school and international signees, every other contender — including UNC — leaned heavily on additions from the portal.
At runner-up Virginia, the nine-man rotation of first-year coach Ryan Odom consisted of six major college transfers, two international prospects and one high school signee. At Clemson, six of the top eight players came from last year’s transfer portal. At Carolina, it was five of the top eight, led by All-ACC center Henri Veesaar, formerly of Arizona.
Third-place Miami, under first-year coach Jai Lucas, provided the most dramatic example of both the importance of the transfer portal and the extremely time-sensitive nature of handling it in an intelligent, productive manner.
The most obvious impact of the portal on Lucas’ immediate success with the Hurricanes came with his starting lineup. Soon after taking the UM job, Lucas lured Indiana forward Malik Reneau and Michigan point guard Tre Donaldson to Coral Gables; good players in the Big Ten, Reneau and Donaldson became great players in the ACC, with each earning all-conference honors. Starting center Ernest Udeh (TCU) and starting guard Tru Washington (New Mexico) were very valuable contributors for the Canes, too.
The less obvious aspect of Lucas’ Year One success story — Miami’s improvement from a 7-24 record in 2024-25 to 26-9 in 2025-26 tied the largest one-year win total jump (19) in Division One history — came with the thoughtfully orchestrated timing of his hiring.
In 2025, the NCAA transfer portal opened March 24, in the midst of the NCAA Tournament. As a long-time assistant coach at Texas, Kentucky and Duke, Lucas understood that getting a head start on the transfer circuit was an absolute prerequisite to having a strong debut at Miami.
With that in mind, Lucas made the unconventional decision to leave Duke at the conclusion of the 2024-25 regular season, even though the Blue Devils were among the favorites for the ACC championship (which they went on to win) and the national championship (they made the Final Four).
Miami announced Lucas’ hiring on March 6, more than two weeks before the opening of last year’s month-long transfer portal window.
“Nobody wants to work toward a goal for 11 months, then leave right before you get to March Madness, which is the best part. Duke was my family for three years, and of course I would have liked to be a part of another ACC championship and the Final Four,” Lucas said. “But I knew that, to maximize our chances of success in our first year at Miami, we had to have a detailed plan in place for the transfer portal long before it officially opened. “It’s impossible to be a successful coach without the right players, and obviously we were building a roster basically from scratch at Miami.”
Therein lies UNC’s current conundrum.
Everyone agrees that the most important goal in any coaching search is landing the best person for the job. In this case, however, UNC clearly is being forced to wait for its #1 target, whether that’s someone still coaching at the Final Four (i.e., Lloyd or May) or someone still coaching in the NBA (e.g., Donovan).
Tommy Lloyd’s Arizona team is steamrolling its way through the NCAA Tournament. Will UNC’s hiring team wait until the Wildcats’ run is finished to see if they can hire away Lloyd, or will they prefer to avoid any delay in picking a new coach? (Photo via Associated Press/Ryan Sun.)
The most recent example of a head coach leaving a Final Four team immediately for another college job is Roy Williams. One week after coaching Kansas in the 2003 national championship game against Syracuse, Williams was announced as the new guy at UNC, his alma mater. That was long before the creation of the transfer portal, of course, so a similar timetable offers much more risk today.
Meanwhile, according to multiple college and NBA sources, Donovan has been absolutely adamant with college suitors over the years about his unwillingness to leave the Bulls prior to the end of the season, even if (like this year) the Bulls aren’t going to make the NBA playoffs.
If UNC’s #1 target (whoever he is) had no such complications, he already would be in place, especially with the April 7 opening of the transfer window in mind. Although NCAA tampering rules are designed to prevent contact between coaches and players prior to April 7, in practice a huge percentage of the top transfers either already have a short list of finalists or already have selected their destination by the time the portal officially opens.
If UNC already (privately) has its man, there’s no doubt that a preliminary portal plan is already in place. Davis’ three high school signees/commitments, plus any potential transfer and international targets, can be asked to wait for an official announcement of the new Carolina coach before they finalize their college decisions for 2026-27.
If UNC doesn’t yet have a firm “yes” from any of its top targets, the Tar Heels would be wise to move very quickly with their backup plan. Otherwise, the university’s ongoing timetable could sabotage the new coach’s first season in Chapel Hill.
Even on April Fools’ Day, that’s no joking matter.
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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.
