UNC Basketball coaching search ramps up as front-runner emerges, says insider
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UNC Basketball coaching search ramps up as front-runner emerges, says insider originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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We're now 12 days removed from Hubert Davis being fired at North Carolina, and there still isn't a clear front-runner for the position. However, with the national championship tomorrow night in Indianapolis, expect some movement in the coming days.
With that said, a few coaches have removed themselves from consideration for the top job at UNC. Tommy Lloyd is staying at Arizona after signing a lucrative extension with the school. Also, Michigan's Dusty May has shot down any speculation about him leaving Ann Arbor. Nate Oats got his own extension on Sunday to stay at Alabama as well.
This leaves the available pool of coaches being thinned out day by day. But there is now one name to watch in his process. Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan has been rumored as a possible replacement for David, and unlike any of the college coaches, getting him to UNC doesn't require a huge buyout.
The latest from Field of 68's Jeff Goodman indicates Donovan is not a front-runner to take over in Chapel Hill and university officials will be focusing their efforts to try and sway him away from the NBA. "North Carolina is now solely focusing its efforts on Billy Donovan," Goodman wrote on X. "They're going to go hard after him, per sources. They expect to know more in the next 24 hours."
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If Donovan does jump back to the collegiate level, this is a monumental addition for UNC basketball and the future of the program. There will be a short-term lapse in recruiting and trying to pull players from the transfer portal. But to have a coach freshly removed from the NBA with a championship-winning background would be an instant plus for what the Tar Heels are trying to accomplish at this point.
Donovan won back-to-back national championships during his time at Florida. He jumped to the NBA with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2015 before heading to Chicago in 2020. For UNC, pulling off a move like this would be the first hire outside the Tar Heels family in decades.
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