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Heel Tough Blog: UNC Basketball to Hire a GM, Expand Basketball Staff

Writer's picture: Joshua MarlowJoshua Marlow

Grant Halverson - Getty Images
Grant Halverson - Getty Images

College basketball, just like college football, isn’t the same sport it was 10 years ago, heck it isn’t the same sport it was five years ago, and as Hubert Davis has learned, it’s not even the same sport it was four years ago. The arrival of NIL and the transfer portal has turned the two sports upside down, forcing coaches to either adapt or get left behind. At 13-10 and on the verge of missing the NCAA Tournament for a second time in four years, UNC is very much on the verge of being a program left behind in the modern climate. When NIL became legal, UNC was one of the leading Universities, advocating for college athletes to earn money, but with little to relegation, they weren’t utilizing NIL to the fullest, hindering Hubert Davis from being able to build a roster capable of living up to the preseason expectations Carolina inherited this season, let alone just living up to the standard of excellence Carolina fans expect from the program. The good news is that according to Davis, the basketball program is going to undergo a major overhaul in the off-season, to help position UNC to be the premier program in college basketball. 


On Mondays, Hubert Davis joins Jones Angell at the Top of the Hill restaurant in Chapel Hill, for his weekly radio show, and Davis offered these quotes on the state of his program and the changes he intends to make this off-season. Davis said, "I am going to increase the staff. It's needed. I never would've thought four years ago when I took the job that 100 percent what is needed is a general manager...There is so much on the plate that will take you away from doing the most important thing: coaching basketball. We're going to hire a GM. "We need a director of marketing and fundraising for NIL for program needs, there needs to be a video coordinator with graphics and recruiting coordinator. All those different types of stuff that have to be built out, whether it's from specific hires or grad students. The old model for Carolina Basketball (in terms of staff size) is not sustainable. It has to build out because there are so many things in play with NIL, agents, international players. You need a bigger staff to maintain things and so I can coach basketball."


The fact that Davis voiced this publicly last night is probably our first sign that he’ll be back on the bench for the 2025-26 season. Given how this season has gone, many fans, along with local and national media members have weighed in on Davis’s job security, even though he’s just a season removed from winning a conference title, earning a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and making it to a second Sweet 16 in three seasons. Unless the rest of the season completely unravels, it’s fair to expect Davis to be back and given a chance to get the program back to its rightful in the sport. 


Davis didn’t go into specifics about the GM hiring process, but it is believed to be underway already, with the program using the connections they have with the NBA to help identify the best candidate. Carolina will join Duke, Kansas, and Villanova as premier programs that have a GM to help manage, NIL, the transfer portal, and other off-court duties. Most notably, last off-season Adrian Wojnarowski left his role as Senior NBA Insider for ESPN, to be the GM for St. Bonaventure.


When Carolina hired Bill Belichick as its football coach and invested and committed the money they did to him, and that program, many Carolina fans wondered what that meant for the basketball program. To be blunt, there was never a scenario that the University, and the powers that be, would go all in on football, a program that hasn’t won a conference championship since 1980, in favor of leaving the basketball program, the most visible aspect of the school, behind. Instead, this is simply following the model that many SEC schools have implemented, which is to invest heavily in football but use the revenue to help elevate other programs. You’ve seen Alabama, Auburn, and other programs benefit from this model, hopefully, Carolina will be the next in line. 


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