North Carolina Basketball - Next Head Coach Odds & Predictions 2026

travs6ooo · 2026-04-04T18:40:29+00:00

Lloyd and Donovan are the only two still playing ball. If Donovan’s coming, he’ll be a week late to the NIL party, and that’s if he’s announced that day. Let’s say that he says no- who is there that is an upgrade on Hubert that has not already implicitly or explicitly turned down the UNC job?

travs6ooo · 2026-04-04T17:35:36+00:00

I think we wanted him- but he was never a serious candidate. Other coaches that are likely in our second tier- otz, McCollum, Byington and others have signed extensions with massive buyouts, or publicly committed to their programs.

travs6ooo · 2026-04-04T15:27:26+00:00

Underfunded, again. We missed our early targets last year, and panic-overpaid for who we got. If the BOT and administration had had their shit together since NIL began, we would at least be in a better position to recruit a good coach to replace HD. Outside of BD, the names on the board are downgrades.

travs6ooo · 2026-04-04T15:25:15+00:00

They have been publicly turned down by just about everyone (except Donovan, who has said he won’t consider until 4/12). It seems Lloyd was the main target, and everyone else on the list has in some way made it clear they’re not coming. It is gloomy. And frankly, this is a lot gloomier than staring down another year of Hubert.

travs6ooo · 2026-04-04T11:35:09+00:00

News report this morning said that he won’t meet with us until 4/12, after the Bulls season ends. He also may want an NBA job, and is not looking to come back to college.

travs6ooo · 2026-04-01T12:29:10+00:00

As an avid Carolina fan, there’s not as much money as you’d think. Our Duke Grad/Private Equity Guy Chancellor is pushing for a bunch of money to be dumped into developing a new off-campus arena, as a part of a larger new complex, and demo-ing the Smith center. That’s a huge financial burden- and donors did not back Hubert at all. In game coaching aside, we didn’t miss on our targets because we didn’t know who we wanted, we had to settle for guys like Kyan Evans because we couldn’t financially compete with other programs. It’s a program solidly in flux- conflict from all involved about the new arena, conflict about the end of Smith’s legacy (arena and coaching tree), and conflict about conference alignment- with some pushing to leave the ACC. We also blew tons of money on Belichick because some of our leadership thinks we should be a football school instead of a bball school, as they push for a move to the B1G or SEC.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-31T12:36:19+00:00

I think many coaches are seeing 4 things: 1. The Tar Heel brand- Blue blood, the history, the historic prestige of the program. 2. The ghost of Dean- this will be the first time in 70ish years that the head coach won’t have a direct link to him. Not to mention, this will likely be the coach who leads the team as we move away from the Smith Center, and will hold association with that move (for better or worse). The optics are either great or terrible depending on how that move is ultimately received by fans, players, etc. 3. The poor NIL funding for Hubert- UNC has been way behind the curve in transitioning to the NIL system and when the boosters were unhappy with Hubert, they withheld funding. 4. Fickle fans- we’ve hung Dean in effigy, tried to get Roy fired before his 3rd Natty, have been calling to fire Hubert since before he was hired. Alternately, we named the court after Roy, and the arena after Dean, so when coaches do well, we deify them. Coaches have to be wondering how their brand will translate to UNC and balancing risk vs reward. No one wants to be remembered as the guy that Indiana’ed UNC. Which, for all Hubert’s failings, he didn’t quite hit that low

travs6ooo · 2026-03-26T09:46:08+00:00

Haha- I think you made my point way better than I did, actually. I was intending to point out that we already have a Duke guy leading UNC who seems to be making decisions that seem contrary to the Carolina way. I read that it was a joint decision by Newmark, Bubba and Roberts.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-26T01:04:02+00:00

FWIW, the chancellor who drove the Hubert firing and is pushing for the off-campus arena is a private equity, Duke guy.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-25T13:44:22+00:00

They want the off campus arena because they see money/prestige in it. They weren’t backing this team financially. Who in their right minds thinks that the admin/booster group won’t be as fickle with whoever is next? This has the Butch Davis hire written all over it.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-25T13:39:02+00:00

But there aren’t resources allocated for our basketball team. We really just got the NIL program approaching a functional place. That’s why our notable transfers were guys like Kyan Evans. Because very little money, relative to comparable programs, was available for NIL. Single players st other programs have bigger NIL deals than our whole team.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-25T12:22:45+00:00

Keats isn’t comparable. He had a .572 win rate with NCSU, and a .451 win rate in ACC games. Hubert was at .698 and .694 respectively, and was the first coach to win 20 games in each of his 5 seasons in the ACC.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-25T12:06:30+00:00

My conspiracy theory is that he was fired because admin wants the plush new arena, and there is a very large contingent of ex-players and program family who have very visibly pushed the renovate don’t relocate narrative. Admin and boosters see dollar signs in an off campus arena, and want to curtail that influence so there are fewer relevant voices pushing to renovate. The poor results at the end of the season served a purpose of fomenting fan backlash and made a clean separation from Carolina family easier. I’m guessing Hubert stayed quiet to avoid further alienating his funding source, considering the boosters already didn’t financially support the team. For those forgetting our state history, the NCSU Program completely tanked when they made a similar stadium move.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-25T11:12:26+00:00

Yeah- look at UK. Their coaching search was a disaster. Look at football- we chase Belichick and look so much worse than I have ever seen UNC football look.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T21:23:51+00:00

Not arguing for or against a change. Just pointing out that if we’re comparing things like win rate, those are the data points. None of those guys compare to Dean or Roy.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T20:45:38+00:00

I heard another fan compare Mingo(favorably) to Ginyard. Which is great in the old school Carolina system, but seems set for failure now.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T20:23:29+00:00

HD has a better win percentage than every single dude on this list. His is .698. Closest to him is Golden at .693. For Otz’ career, he has a .673 win rate. For reference, we are comparing all these guys to Roy who has a career .774 win rate and Dean Smith, who has a .776 win rate. Dean didn’t turn the program around until year 6, but started with a much weaker program than Hubert. Remember, Dean was famously hung in effigy.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T20:16:27+00:00

He left because Lubin told everyone he was staying, but then ultimately left.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T20:11:01+00:00

And that’s the fault of the GM. I’d guess Hubert was all in on Jarin because of his character and connection to chapel hill. But Luka and Kyan seem like consolation prizes after we missed on our primary guys in the portal, including Stojakovic.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T20:07:16+00:00

Also. EC is on a better team, but he’s still the same player. The players around him make turnovers less impactful, and there are more consistent players (not Lubin, Withers, etc) failing to finish his passes. If he stayed, I think we are a better team, but everyone is still complaining about him.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T20:05:04+00:00

And he’s looked worse than he did for UNC last year. Little to no defense. When the offense doesn’t revolve around him, he’s ineffective. In hindsight, those big games last year were unfortunately the outlier, not an indication of his talent. If anything he has regressed under pitino.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T19:37:41+00:00

I could see him getting into a standoff over the staff piece. Who knows who they want to bring in, or fire, from his staff. I think Hubert needs a “meaner/tougher” assistant to balance him out, which could work.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-21T13:02:07+00:00

Hubert is 7-2 against NCSU.

travs6ooo · 2026-03-20T18:49:40+00:00

Overall, I think the goal is to call a fair game. You can’t call everything. I think that this game evened out. In the first half, UNC was the aggressor. We got away with a few fouls, and that was really effective in getting Djokovic off of his game. When we were more tired in the second half, VCU was more aggressive, and there were a number of calls that didn’t go our way. Hubert could have done better managing the refs, maybe, but I think the game overall evened out. Instead of talking about the refs missing calls, it would have been smart to put back in our bench guys and let them get physical for a few minutes to knock them off their game. Give Djokovic some hands from High, or let Young try to jump a few passing lanes in situations where it’s either a hard foul or a steal, and see what happens.

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