University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: ANTHONY SORBELLINI
Lucas: 100
February 29, 2024 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
One hundred games into his coaching tenure, Hubert Davis is running the program his own way.
By Adam Lucas
Hubert Davis had no idea what he was doing.
He couldn't have. Not when he took the North Carolina head coaching job on April 5, 2021.
On that day, 1,060 days ago, he thought he was becoming a head basketball coach. He had no clue—nor did anyone in sports—that college athletics were about to undergo the most dramatic transformations in the history of their existence.
Being a basketball coach—that part is fun. The coaching and the player development and the strategy is close to what it's always been.
Nothing else is the same. And yet here we are, 100 games into the Hubert Davis coaching era, and the Tar Heels are right where they have always been—at the top of the conference and a national contender.
Maybe there are other basketball coaches who have more tenure and are more accomplished. Although, as we speak, there are only 15 coaches on the Naismith Award's late-season watch list for National Coach of the Year, and one of those 15 is Hubert Davis.
But none of those other 14 have as complete an understanding of what's required to be the Carolinabasketball coach.
It's different. It just is. This is not bragging. Being the head basketball coach at North Carolina is different than anywhere else in the country. You could pick up a great basketball coach at almost any SEC school and drop them at almost any Big XII school and they would immediately be able to plug in the exact same things that have always made them successful.
You can't do that at Carolina. The job is different. The expectations are different. The outside pressures are different. The whole thing is different. This is the modern era—ask players who transfer to Chapel Hill from other Atlantic Coast Conference schools. They've been an ACC basketball player before, but they've never been a Carolina basketball player. The same is true of coaching.
Davis knew the reality before he took the job. In many ways, that's why he took the job. He doesn't want to be a basketball coach. He wants to be the North Carolina basketball coach. But like everyone else in the game, he's had to adapt on the fly these last three years. The way he thought he might build the program in 2021 has changed dramatically in 2024.
And here he is, with 71 wins in his first 100 games. Bill Guthridge had 75 victories in his first 100. Roy Williams had 77. In the most turbulent time in college sports, Davis is right there with them.
With a roster he's constructed almost entirely himself, making the best use of the rules in the current basketball landscape, his Tar Heels sit a game up in the ACC regular season race with three games to play. The way you build a college basketball winner has completely changed. And yet, under Davis' direction, Carolina is still winning. He was taught by the best, as a player and as a coach. But even the best couldn't have anticipated the realities of today's game. Still, he has adapted.
Here's the trick: he's having success on the court—as you might remember, he's also coached a team to a national championship game and engineered two of the most satisfying non-title wins in program history—while maintaining what the program is about off the court.
Ultimately, he will be judged on wins and losses. Davis knows that. But he's not willing to sacrifice anything off the court to achieve those results. That's why kids from the Hargraves Community Center were on the court with the Tar Heels before Monday's game. That's why he still values meeting with players in his office during the week, even if basketball is never discussed. The team does a Special Olympics clinic and hears from former players at practice and points to the passer.
The changing landscape means he's had to change plenty about the way he directs the program in the first 100 games. But he has never once changed the ultimate reason why he does it.
"He loves these players like he does his own children," says Leslie Davis. "And the staff he has put together is truly family. He gets a lot of joy from knowing them and watching them grow up at Carolina, a place he deeply loves."
Hang on a second. She is right. But to put that in some context, we are talking about someone whose ideal off day in the middle of the season—as the head basketball coach at North Carolina, when any number of organizations or clubs would love to host him and shower him with perks—just might be driving to Virginia to have lunch with his son, then turning around and driving back home. So to love someone like his own children--those are big words in his world.
On Wednesday, he was talking about RJ Davis' 42-point Smith Center scoring record performance, and he was almost moved to tears. "I'm just so proud of him," he said.
There are times during games—and practices—when he simply can't contain himself, and can be spotted leaping up the sideline exhorting his team. He sounds hoarse for most of the basketball season, because he treats every possession of dummy offense during every practice as though it's the last trip downcourt in the Final Four. There are absolutely no shortcuts. Finish every drill with a made basket. Set every screen perfectly. "Discipline and details," he says, over and over again.
His competitiveness is underrated. Let the Blue team score a couple quick baskets during a drill, and he's quick to jump on the White squad. "Kill 'em, Blue!" he'll shout. He is an underestimated trash talker, and is known to deploy that same, "Kill 'em!" when a staff member or a friend unleashes a particularly good zinger.
He is not Roy Williams, but has never tried to be. Three years in, this is undeniably his roster and his team and his program.
So, yes, I'm going to celebrate 100 games. Because let's be realistic: there may not be 1,000. Not in this era of college basketball. 1,000 would be approximately 25 more years. That's a long, long time for someone who takes it this seriously.
Maybe there are some longtime fans who still think of him as, "Huuuuuu!" that player they cheered for as a player at the Smith Center. But 100 games in, he is very much Coach Davis.
During a week with no games last week, he recruited in multiple time zones and lost sleep thinking about permutations of his current team and planned practices and talked to former lettermen and wrote letters and watched film of Virginia to try and figure out how to beat the Cavaliers.
Those are all necessities of his job. But not where he is the happiest with his job.
Which is?
"When he's on the court," Leslie says. "And when he's in a relaxed setting with the players and coaches."
In other words, when he's being the Carolina basketball coach. Which is exactly where he should be.
Hubert Davis had no idea what he was doing.
He couldn't have. Not when he took the North Carolina head coaching job on April 5, 2021.
On that day, 1,060 days ago, he thought he was becoming a head basketball coach. He had no clue—nor did anyone in sports—that college athletics were about to undergo the most dramatic transformations in the history of their existence.
Being a basketball coach—that part is fun. The coaching and the player development and the strategy is close to what it's always been.
Nothing else is the same. And yet here we are, 100 games into the Hubert Davis coaching era, and the Tar Heels are right where they have always been—at the top of the conference and a national contender.
Maybe there are other basketball coaches who have more tenure and are more accomplished. Although, as we speak, there are only 15 coaches on the Naismith Award's late-season watch list for National Coach of the Year, and one of those 15 is Hubert Davis.
But none of those other 14 have as complete an understanding of what's required to be the Carolinabasketball coach.
It's different. It just is. This is not bragging. Being the head basketball coach at North Carolina is different than anywhere else in the country. You could pick up a great basketball coach at almost any SEC school and drop them at almost any Big XII school and they would immediately be able to plug in the exact same things that have always made them successful.
You can't do that at Carolina. The job is different. The expectations are different. The outside pressures are different. The whole thing is different. This is the modern era—ask players who transfer to Chapel Hill from other Atlantic Coast Conference schools. They've been an ACC basketball player before, but they've never been a Carolina basketball player. The same is true of coaching.
Davis knew the reality before he took the job. In many ways, that's why he took the job. He doesn't want to be a basketball coach. He wants to be the North Carolina basketball coach. But like everyone else in the game, he's had to adapt on the fly these last three years. The way he thought he might build the program in 2021 has changed dramatically in 2024.
And here he is, with 71 wins in his first 100 games. Bill Guthridge had 75 victories in his first 100. Roy Williams had 77. In the most turbulent time in college sports, Davis is right there with them.
With a roster he's constructed almost entirely himself, making the best use of the rules in the current basketball landscape, his Tar Heels sit a game up in the ACC regular season race with three games to play. The way you build a college basketball winner has completely changed. And yet, under Davis' direction, Carolina is still winning. He was taught by the best, as a player and as a coach. But even the best couldn't have anticipated the realities of today's game. Still, he has adapted.
Here's the trick: he's having success on the court—as you might remember, he's also coached a team to a national championship game and engineered two of the most satisfying non-title wins in program history—while maintaining what the program is about off the court.
Ultimately, he will be judged on wins and losses. Davis knows that. But he's not willing to sacrifice anything off the court to achieve those results. That's why kids from the Hargraves Community Center were on the court with the Tar Heels before Monday's game. That's why he still values meeting with players in his office during the week, even if basketball is never discussed. The team does a Special Olympics clinic and hears from former players at practice and points to the passer.
The changing landscape means he's had to change plenty about the way he directs the program in the first 100 games. But he has never once changed the ultimate reason why he does it.
"He loves these players like he does his own children," says Leslie Davis. "And the staff he has put together is truly family. He gets a lot of joy from knowing them and watching them grow up at Carolina, a place he deeply loves."
Hang on a second. She is right. But to put that in some context, we are talking about someone whose ideal off day in the middle of the season—as the head basketball coach at North Carolina, when any number of organizations or clubs would love to host him and shower him with perks—just might be driving to Virginia to have lunch with his son, then turning around and driving back home. So to love someone like his own children--those are big words in his world.
On Wednesday, he was talking about RJ Davis' 42-point Smith Center scoring record performance, and he was almost moved to tears. "I'm just so proud of him," he said.
There are times during games—and practices—when he simply can't contain himself, and can be spotted leaping up the sideline exhorting his team. He sounds hoarse for most of the basketball season, because he treats every possession of dummy offense during every practice as though it's the last trip downcourt in the Final Four. There are absolutely no shortcuts. Finish every drill with a made basket. Set every screen perfectly. "Discipline and details," he says, over and over again.
His competitiveness is underrated. Let the Blue team score a couple quick baskets during a drill, and he's quick to jump on the White squad. "Kill 'em, Blue!" he'll shout. He is an underestimated trash talker, and is known to deploy that same, "Kill 'em!" when a staff member or a friend unleashes a particularly good zinger.
He is not Roy Williams, but has never tried to be. Three years in, this is undeniably his roster and his team and his program.
So, yes, I'm going to celebrate 100 games. Because let's be realistic: there may not be 1,000. Not in this era of college basketball. 1,000 would be approximately 25 more years. That's a long, long time for someone who takes it this seriously.
Maybe there are some longtime fans who still think of him as, "Huuuuuu!" that player they cheered for as a player at the Smith Center. But 100 games in, he is very much Coach Davis.
During a week with no games last week, he recruited in multiple time zones and lost sleep thinking about permutations of his current team and planned practices and talked to former lettermen and wrote letters and watched film of Virginia to try and figure out how to beat the Cavaliers.
Those are all necessities of his job. But not where he is the happiest with his job.
Which is?
"When he's on the court," Leslie says. "And when he's in a relaxed setting with the players and coaches."
In other words, when he's being the Carolina basketball coach. Which is exactly where he should be.
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