North Carolina is expected to promote longtime assistant Hubert Davis to replace Roy Williams as Tar Heels’ new basketball coach, sources confirmed to ESPN.
The university’s board of directors was holding a meeting on Monday to approve Davis’s contract, sources told ESPN.
Williams, a Hall of Famer member who has won three national championships and over 900 games, retired last week after 18 seasons in North Carolina and 33 seasons as head coach. He is the only trainer in history to have 400 victories in two different schools.
Davis has been Williams’ assistant coach for the past nine seasons at Chapel Hill and was a favorite immediately after the vacancy opened.
UNC sporting director Bubba Cunningham should choose to hire someone from the Carolina family, as the program has been doing for the past 70 years, which means that Davis and Wes Miller of UNC Greensboro were the favorites.
Cunningham did research on some names that are not part of the Williams training tree, but Davis was supported by Williams and many former players, sources told ESPN.
Born in Virginia, Davis played for Dean Smith in North Carolina from 1988 to 1992 before being picked by the New York Knicks in the NBA’s first round. He spent 12 seasons in the NBA with six different organizations. Davis also worked as a college basketball analyst for ESPN.
Inside Carolina and Raleigh News & Observer reported for the first time that UNC should hire Davis.