CBS’s Eye On College Basketball has been doing a summer series about prominent programs and on Monday, they posted an episode about UNC and Hubert Davis’s future. Gary Parrish had local media figure Joe Ovies on and while he’s basically an NC State guy, it’s hard to disagree with a lot of what he and Parrish said about the state of UNC Basketball, including Hubert Davis’s future.
Ovies has some sharp comments on UNC being behind the curve and trying to catch up and also points out that the Tar Heel
faithful will not react well if UNC is seen as the third best team in the Triangle.
Parrish talks about how once you are perceived as being on the hot seat how very difficult it is to escape that perception.
Ovies also talked about how Jon Scheyer quickly put his stamp on the Duke program and made it his own, while Davis is so focused on the past with Dean Smith and Ol’ Roy Williams that he hasn’t been able to make the changes that were needed until very recently.
What neither of them addressed was the gap between the people skills of Smith and Williams vs. those of Davis. Smith’s players (including Davis) adored him. Williams’ players were also very loyal. That hasn’t been the case with Davis so far and not just because of the changes that instant transfers and the portal brought about. Some of the players who left have left unhappy.
Whatever else Davis does to “modernize” the UNC program, the one old-fashioned key to any program is how you deal with people. We’re not saying that Hubert Davis is Matt Doherty, but if Smith and Williams are at the left end of the scale and Doherty is at the right, then Davis is probably somewhere past the halfway point.
If he doesn’t address that, nothing else is going to matter in the long run. And as we’ve noted from time to time, the Smith/Williams coaching tree is just about tapped out which means they’ll probably have to go outside the family if Davis is let go. It’s pretty clear to us that UNC will open the checkbook and get the best coach possible, but leaving the long Dean Smith epoch behind will be traumatic for many.
If you’re interested, you can find the podcast anywhere you get your other audio addictions.
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