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The North Carolina Tar Heels have decided to hire their next head coach from within the program.
Multiple reports state UNC assistant coach Hubert Davis will be promoted to head coach and replace Roy Williams, who retired on April 1.
Davis joined Williams staff in 2012 and helped guide the Tar Heels to a pair of National Championship games, including a National Championship victory over Gonzaga in 2017.
He played his college basketball for the Tar Heels and averaged 21.4 points for them as a senior in 1992.
Hubert Davis was Roy Williams’ choice to succeed him, and that went a long way with Bubba Cunningham, source told @Stadium.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) April 5, 2021
But there were multiple former players in the Carolina family that felt as though Wes Miller was the better pick for the job.
After his college career, he spent over a decade in the NBA after being drafted 20th overall by the New York Knicks in 1992. With the Knicks, he famously clinched a Game 5 win for New York at the free-throw line after being fouled by Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen.
He went onto spend time with the Raptors, Mavericks, Wizards, Pistons and Nets before retiring from the NBA after the 2004 season.
The 50-year-old Davis is considered a great recruiter, though he does not have head-coaching experience, so it’s fair to question a top-notch school like the Tar Heels not pursuing more proven commodities.
Davis will take over a UNC team coming off back-to-back disappointing seasons after they went 14-19 in the 2019-20 season and 18-11 last season, getting blown out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Wisconsin.
Unlike Indiana, however, the Tar Heels are still very much a blue-blood program, and expectations will be a Final Four every season.