ESPN's new UNC target list is setting Tar Heel fans up for more disappointment

Coaching searches for major power conference jobs have never been clean and easy. In the NIL and revenue-sharing era, when any program that’s willing to pay up can be considered a national championship contender, they seem to be messier than ever. North Carolina is learning this the hard way after firing Hubert Davis to start this offseason. 

Everything indicated that the Tar Heels brass zeroed in on Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd, but after leading the Wildcats to their first Final Four since 2001, Lloyd was rewarded with a massive contract extension and even more power in the athletic department in Tucson. So, with the top target off the board, UNC has to pivot, and ESPN is expecting them to pivot in a few surprising directions. 

ESPN’s pre-Final Four College Gameday broadcast revealed a list of new potential targets for UNC after Lloyd landed his extension, and it’s setting up Tar Heels fans to be disappointed again. 

The list included Billy Donovan, who many expect to be one of the favorites now, Dusty May, who is reportedly unlikely to leave Michigan for Chapel Hill, TJ Otzelberger, who has already openly turned down the job to stay at Iowa State, and Dan Hurley. 

ESPN awakens a Dan Hurley to UNC dream that will never come true

Of the list, Donovan is by far the most realistic option for UNC. He’s still the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, but there have been murmurs that he’s ready to step down. Otzelberger isn’t going to happen, May is somewhere in the middle, but Hurley is just absurd. 

Dan Hurley was rumored to be a top candidate for the Los Angeles Lakers, and that wasn’t enough to get the two-time national champion to leave Storrs, Connecticut. All due respect to North Carolina, another college job certainly isn’t going to pry him away from the program that has the most six national titles since 1999. 

UNC couldn’t even poach Arizona’s head coach, and that’s a program that, before this season, hadn’t been back to the Final Four since 2001. The NIL and revenue-sharing era of college basketball has stripped some of the prestige away from blue-blood programs, because as long as you spend enough, you can win anywhere. Hurley said it himself this year. 

“You can't get by on your brand anymore... none of these kids care about that anymore. None of the people close to them care about it because the majority of the people that are advising the kids now are agents who are looking at it from a business perspective."

The only reason a coach who views the sport that way would leave a job is if his program wasn’t doing enough to deliver the talent he needs to win. Considering that Hurley is about to coach in his third Final Four in four years, I’d say he’s doing alright.

There’s no reason for anyone, not ESPN or a fan wearing permanent Carolina Blue glasses, to consider Hurley a possibility for the job, because he’s not considering going anywhere.