Written by DAVID GLENN
No men’s basketball program in America has more experience with the Final Four spotlight than the one at the University of North Carolina. The Tar Heels have competed in the national semifinals a record 21 times, with those appearances stretching all the way from 1946 to 2022.
The attention on UNC during Final Four week this year, however, is entirely because the university is in the midst of its first truly national coaching search in men’s basketball since way back in 1952.
Seventy-four years ago, amidst another set of conversations that ultimately led to the creation of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953, the Tar Heels hired St. John’s coach Frank McGuire, someone who had no prior connection to Carolina but was coming off a trip to the NCAA championship game. Since then, each of the Heels’ five head coaches — from Dean Smith through Hubert Davis — had previously played and/or served as an assistant coach in Chapel Hill.
Because of the enormous importance of the modern NCAA transfer portal, which this year opens April 7, UNC’s new coach would be at a massive disadvantage in building his 2026-27 roster unless he’s hired soon enough — meaning in the next few days — to build his staff, create a detailed portal plan, and handle countless other important decisions.
Among those at or near the top of Carolina’s original wish list, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Michigan’s Dusty May will be coaching in the Final Four on Saturday night … and one of them will be coaching next Monday night, too. Meanwhile, if the top choice is Billy Donovan or another NBA head coach, there is another set of complications, because that league’s regular season doesn’t end until April 12.
None of these hurdles is automatically insurmountable, but it’s worth pointing out that the most recent Final Four coach to leave immediately for another college job was Roy Williams, who left Kansas for UNC within a week of the Jayhawks’ loss to Syracuse in the 2003 NCAA title game. Twenty-three years later, because of the transfer portal, a similar timetable just wouldn’t work nearly as well.
That’s why, instead of simply celebrating the dominant weekend victories posted by UNC baseball coach Scott Forbes, men’s lacrosse coach Joe Breschi and women’s lacrosse coach Jenny Levy, Carolina fans also remained on pins and needles, wondering who the Tar Heels’ next basketball coach will be and how long it’s going to take to get that hugely important deal done.
David Glenn is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jeffrey T. Barnes
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