North Carolina is expected to promote longtime assistant Hubert Davis to replace Roy Williams as the Tar Heels’ new head basketball coach, sources have confirmed to ESPN.
The university’s board of trustees was holding a meeting Monday to approve Davis’ contract, sources told ESPN.
Williams, a Hall of Famer who won three national championships and more than 900 games, retired last week after 18 seasons at North Carolina and 33 seasons as a head coach. He is the only coach in history to post 400 wins at two different schools.
Davis has been an assistant coach under Williams for the past nine seasons in Chapel Hill and was one of the favorites immediately after the job opened.
UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham was expected to choose to hire someone within the Carolina family, as the program has done for the past 70 years, meaning Davis and UNC Greensboro’s Wes Miller were the front-runners.
Cunningham did do background research on a few names not part of the Williams coaching tree, but Davis had the backing of Williams and many former players, sources told ESPN.
A Virginia native, Davis played for Dean Smith at North Carolina from 1988 to 1992 before being a first-round NBA draft pick by the New York Knicks. He spent 12 seasons in the NBA with six different organizations. Davis also spent time as a college basketball analyst for ESPN.
Inside Carolina and the Raleigh News & Observer first reported that UNC was expected to hire Davis.