There are very few teams who are classified as a blue blood in men’s college basketball but one name that always appears in these conversations is the North Carolina Tar Heels. They have earned it. The Tar Heels have 39 conference championships, 53 NCAA tournament appearances, 21 Final Fours, and 6 National Titles. The resume speaks for itself. North Carolina basketball demands greatness, and they expect it, that is why when they are not winning and not making NCAA tournaments fans start getting restless.
North Carolina isn’t winning, they don’t look like they are going to go on a run any time soon and are likely going to miss the tournament for the second time in the last three seasons. Given their history that doesn’t happen for the Tar Heels. Matt Doherty is the last coach in Chapel Hill who missed the tournament 2 times in three years, and he didn’t make it past three seasons. Hubert Davis is the current coach for North Carolina, and he is the one responsible for the downward trend of the program. Outside of a huge February run in his first season that ended with the Tar Heels in the National Title game, Davis would have missed the tournament 3 out of 4 seasons.
Davis finds himself on the hot seat in the court of public opinion. He likely won’t get fired, given that Davis mentioned a “philosophical pivot,” and he wants to hire a General Manager to help with roster management and NIL. The Tar Heels fan base wants to see someone new on the bench next year especially after getting smoked by Duke over the weekend. Davis has not been living up to the lofty expectations his alma mater has placed on him, but the grass is not always greener, especially when it comes to coaches. I have a list of five coaches who would likely be in the mix for the Tar Heels that would be worse than the current head man.
Wes Miller
Miller is the current head coach at Cincinnati, and he also happens to be on the hot seat. The Bearcats opened the season in the top 25 and looked like a lock to make the NCAA tournament. After reality set in Cincinnati is no 2-7 in the Big 12 and finds themselves out of the tournament. That would now be four straight seasons for the Bearcats with no tournament.
Wes Miller was good with UNC Greensboro and made two NCAA tournaments, but his style isn’t going to work for North Carolina. He plays a style that is built around defense and very little offense. That isn’t bad, and it has won Miller a lot of games. If that works in big-time conferences with big-time scorers, the verdict is still out. It has not yet for Miller, and he may not get a chance to figure it out as the head coach for the Bearcats. Miller is a former Tar Heel player so he would understand the tradition, it just doesn’t appear that he will be able to coach a team that can get to that level.
Tom Crean
North Carolina still has a coach,
so this is just an exercise, but since this is an exercise, let's have fun with this. Crean had a great career as a coach at Marquette and led them to a Final Four in 2002-2003. That team had Dwayne Wade on it. Crean then moved on to Indiana where he three sweet 16’s and coached a ton of talent. He coached Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Christian Watford, and Yogi Ferrell. The Sweet 16 was the best he could do with that talent. Then at Georgia, he coached Anthony Edwards but could never get his teams to perform.
There is no question that Crean can recruit, he is one of the best recruiters in the game. Development and in-game coaching is where the issues lie. The other big issue is that Crean has been out of coaching since 2022, but because he has had success at power conference schools, he is always going to be mentioned for power conference jobs. North Carolina could get Crean cheap, but Hubert Davis is a better coach.
Jerry Stackhouse
There is no question that Stackhouse is a North Carolina legend, and people would love to see him roaming the sidelines of the Dean Dome, coaching the team to a National Championship. The only problem is that Stackhouse failed miserably as a coach in the SEC with Vanderbilt. He was fired last offseason after a 9-23 season and an overall record of 70-92. The Commodores didn’t make the NCAA tournament at any point during his tenure.
Stackhouse is another guy who is a great recruiter given his ties to AAU ball. He recruited Scotty Pippen Jr. and would have been able to get more talent to come to North Carolina but the coaching and development at the college level is where he struggled. At this point in his career, Stackhouse is comfortable as an assistant in the NBA. He doesn’t have to develop players or recruit. The college experiment didn’t work very well for him.
Jeff Capel
This one would be interesting because he has been the long time coach at the ACC rival Pittsburgh Panthers. It would also be interesting given that he played at Duke for Coach K. The odds of this happening are also slim given that he won’t be fired from Pitt and is not likely to ever take a job at North Carolina even if he were.
For the record, Capel is a good coach who has proven he can win in the ACC, and if he is given time he will go out and get top talent to play for the Tar Heels, but will North Carolina want to give him time? The Tar Heels are used to winning now and Capel has not proven he can make the tournament consistently or advance to the second weekend and beyond.
Jerod Haase
Haase is another coach from the Roy Williams coaching tree who was able to use his success as an assistant coach to get a head coaching job. Haase was able to get UAB to the NCAA tournament in his third season and they upset Iowa State before finally losing in the second round. That led to Haase getting the Stanford job where he did have some minimal success. He didn’t ever make the NCAA tournament at Stanford but he did win 20 games once and 11 games once. That is never going to be good enough at North Carolina where you are expected to win all the time every year. 20 wins is the standard in Chapel Hill.
Haase does have a quality that could help him be successful at North Carolina and that is his ability to recruit. He was able to consistently get 5-star recruits to come to Palo Alto. Harrison Ingram, Ziaire Williams, and Spencer Jones were all players who were recruited and coached by Haase. Even with all of those players, Stanford still never made the tournament, and to take it a step further, were never on the bubble. Haase is not currently coaching anywhere and is not the man for the North Carolina job even with his ties to the school.
It has been a tough season for the Tar Heels and Davis isn’t getting it done. The Tar Heels did just secure a commitment from a five-star center who is going to hopefully help the Tar Heels. The seat is hot, and it is burning in the court of public opinion. Their opinion doesn’t matter unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it. Always remember the grass is not always greener, and it could be much worse for Tar Heel fans.