Welcome to Tar Heel Blog’s Question of the Day, a new daily conversation starter. Our first question today could actually be “where do we even start?” How do we pick just one question, among the many springing
out of UNC athletics?
We could debate the debate itself. Belichick and Lombardi’s 2025 season exposes a fault line. That would lead us to ask something like “how hard a lift is UNC football, anyway,” which in turn flows into whether 4-8 falls at the feet of UNC football itself — or just the $15 million/year extended-family brain trust currently running it. Another possibility could revolve around UNC’s level of athletic engagement (and financial commitment) in an era in which the best players go to the highest bidders, a complete inversion of the amateurism model most of us grew up with. For today, however, let’s look at the program on which every UNC fan has firm opinions: UNC men’s basketball.
“Hubert Davis is a _____ coach.”
The question: how do we fill in that blank?
Me: Good. He’s had undeniable moments of greatness. Ruining Coach K’s final home game celebration was some great coaching. We can’t call that a fluke because his team did it again in the Final Four, in the most consequential UNC-Duke game ever played.
Davis understood the pressure would be entirely on Duke in the closing moments of those games, and especially on Duke’s head coach. Coach K, late in both games reverted to exhorting his players rather than calming and directing them, with counter-productive results. Davis’ team wasn’t the more physically gifted, but they were the more psychologically prepared. Very Dean Smith, in my humble opinion.
On the flip side, Davis had a learning curve with respect to NIL and the transfer game (and I’d argue those manifested most in backcourt dysfunction). I’d also argue this season strongly indicates “lessons learned” on that front, but I’ll concede results remain incomplete. B+ so far.
Can Davis make the leap from “good” to “great”? A related but separate question.
Let us know how you would fill the blank and why in the comments below!
