There is increasing speculation in the last 24 hours that UNC’s loss to VCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in which the Tar Heels blew a 19 point lead in the second half may spell the end of Hubert Davis as head coach. While nothing official has come out of UNC, Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, among others, is saying that sources believe it would a huge surprise if the Tar Heels don’t move on from Davis in the next few days.
Norlander notes that Davis had no contact with his staff from Friday
into Saturday morning. There was expected to be a regularly scheduled team meeting today, and Norlander says Davis was expected to meet with members of the athletic department at some point today as well.
The biggest sign that the end may be near is that Norlander is hearing that boosters have expressed a lack of confidence in Davis moving forward, making funding next year’s roster nearly impossible. The belief was that they could raise the money to fund Davis’ buyout and pay for a new coach, but those same people would not be willing to open their wallets to help pay for the NIL necessary to put together a competitive roster for 2026-2027.
With that being the case, it feels like Carolina will have little choice but to rip the bandaid off sooner rather than later. Keeping Davis with an under-funded roster for next year would put them at a severe disadvantage and likely only serve to fend off a coaching search for one year.
It feels like the tide changed dramatically after the VCU game played out the way it did. Former players expressed their frustrations online and the overall tone around the program felt like one where the most likely outcome was a new coach for next season. If UNC chose to keep Davis around, they would inevitably be fighting all of the outside noise that has become pretty impossible to ignore.
We’ll keep you updated as more comes out about this situation.
