What's Next for Carolina Basketball? - IC Daily | College Basketball

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What's next, after Carlonna loses the VCU last night?

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Greg, you figure when you sleep on something,

maybe it'll settle down a little bit.

It has not settled down.

My phone continues to blow up.

The message boards at insight, Carlonna,

continue to be on fire.

Hubert Davis, as you put it in your column,

certainly in the spotlight.

And it is a very, very bright spotlight at the moment.

It is, Tommy.

And we tried to kind of set the stage earlier this week

and saying that it was a situation

where North Carolina was not yet ready

to make a move,

but that we would see how the incidental determined went

and whether that ignited conversation

or kind of settled it down.

And I think with how the game played out yesterday,

it could not have gone any worse.

And we talked about it last night

and then the post game show about how it is really

kind of the perfect encapsulation

of what we've seen from this team this year,

much like the Ole Miss game

and the NCAA tournament last spring,

kind of encapsulated what that team was like.

Just a lot of inconsistency.

And then Hubert just had a really poor press conference showing

that certainly didn't help perspective at a national level.

There's a lot of attention kind of been paid

to some of his comments.

So just kind of a worst case scenario

without everything played out in Greenville.

And now we wait.

We know there's a lot of conversations taking place

and the university has to decide

what does Carolina basketball look like moving forward?

And as Hubert Davis, part of that conversation,

we don't know that answer right now,

but with the transfer portal opening up in 18 days,

there's very little time to waste.

Yes, like we've talked about over the last few years

with recruiting and things like that,

is that the clock is sped up so much on that side.

Well, it matters in coaching decisions as well.

And Greg, you mentioned the press conference.

I cannot imagine a worst press conference

for a coach under fire than that one.

I mean, just literally unbelievable there.

And then of course the game itself,

it encapsulated as you said,

the last five years of what's going on

under Carolina basketball to your point.

What does Carolina basketball look like going forward?

I put out a tweet or whatever you call it on X these days

and said Carolina administration's got to make a decision

of what they're going to accept and what they expect.

And I thought and I think the decision that they make

will certainly highlight the answers to those questions.

But it's not as cut and dry.

Well, it's cut and dried in my opinion.

I don't think there's a path forward with the current staff.

But it's not quite that simple

when you're actually the ones making those decisions, right?

For sure.

And I really think that the challenge here,

as we've talked about a lot Tommy,

is you've got the value of the past

and then you've got what's to come.

And I don't think there's any question

that we're in a completely unique environment

in college athletics.

You know, since Hubert Davis took over,

things have changed dramatically with NIL and revshare

and just kind of the money revolution of the sport.

You know, you can just look at some of the court cases

with NCAA, right?

Where the courts are saying,

well, it used to be some of these laws and bylaws applied

because these were for educational institutions.

Well, now these are commercial institutions

with the amount of money that's coming in from media deals

and TV revenue sharing and these types of things.

So completely different ball game.

And one of the reasons that North Carolina chose to go

with Hubert Davis five years ago

is because he had the tie to Roy,

he had the tie to Dean Smith,

he had the tie to the North Carolina basketball program

and was really a good representation

of what the Carolina basketball family was.

And there's value in that.

You know, we've talked before about the importance

of holding on to what made this program special

and that remains important regardless of the decision

to move forward.

But on the other side, we're having this conversation

about the Smith Center.

And whether you do a renovation or build a new arena,

bottom line is you're gonna have to spend probably $550 million

to get that facility to where you want it to be.

At a minimum.

And you've got to be able to front fundraise for that goal.

And given what North Carolina basketball is right now,

where they're not at the level that Roy Williams had them.

But at the same time, they're not, you know,

like the 50th best program in the country.

It's you're at that threshold of, okay,

can we fundraise enough with the current product?

I would say no.

And so then it becomes a matter of well,

do you have to just strap everything and start fresh?

Or are there implementations that can be made

with Hubert Davis and his staff to get them over the hump?

Because if you look back over the last five years,

Bartorvik allows you to collect data over that time period.

The UNC basketball program ranks 20th.

So I think we can all agree that is just outside

where North Carolina wants to be.

And this is a top 10 program.

But it's not like a Matt Dirty situation

where you're going eight and 20.

There's a big gap there.

So given that, if you decide to keep Hubert Davis for a six year,

what can you do to bridge that gap?

And last year,

Carolina decided to hire Jim Tainer as a general manager.

They decided to invest heavily in the roster.

You know, Carolina has from everything that we've gathered

and from all the reporting available,

you know, top 10 nationally in terms of roster budget.

What's the next step?

And I think the next step would have to be,

you know, some coaching staff shakeups.

You would need to bring in some outside perspective.

I think that's one of the areas where

Hubert really made a mistake is holding firm to the idea

that for anybody to coach here, they need to be played

or coached at Carolina.

You just kind of really limit the talent pool

and the ideas that come in.

So I think they would have to be a hard look at that

and bringing in maybe an ace recruiter

and maybe bringing in somebody to help specifically

with offensive sets or defensive philosophy,

those types of things.

And would Hubert Davis be willing to do that?

You know, that's the other part of it.

So there's a lot of conversation that goes into this,

but I think regardless of where things move,

change is coming in one form or fashion.

And I think certainly it's needed.

We've got five years of data.

And this is just not good enough for what Carolina basketball

wants to be, what it aims to be,

and how they address those changes is what we're waiting to see.

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I tell you when Greg Barnes here on IC Daily

for Friday, March 20th, Carolina,

out of the NCAA tournament, I'll be frank.

I haven't watched one game in this NCAA tournament,

obviously last night or except one.

I've watched one.

That after last night working on this stuff and all

and then today I haven't turned it on

just a weird time for somebody that would watch,

you know, everybody play.

But Greg, when you're looking at this, a couple things.

The argument that you hear and it's out there

that there's just so much going on for Carolina.

Do they have the stomach?

Do they want to take on this as well?

And we've talked about football,

we've talked about the arena,

the AD transition, the conference alignment thing.

All of these things going on.

I think it's all together.

I think it is a deal where you can

handle it all at once.

One stop shot and then you mentioned fundraising and all

and all these issues.

How pressing or how big a deal is

of those things that are going on,

the head coach role of North Carolina basketball.

Because as of right now, it's still Carolina.

Like Sherrell talked about last night.

It's still Carolina.

It's still matters and people still look at it that way.

The fear is that one day they will not.

If it continues down the road.

But how where does the head coach

in that decision rank and all of these things

that are going on in Chapel Hill?

I think it's either one or one A or one B.

It's your take.

Well, first, let me say this.

I know fans like to throw out.

Well, if you've Carolina doesn't get this address,

they're going to be the next Indiana or they're going to be the next UCLA

and go through the desert for 40 years.

Just in talking with so many people

in and around the program who care passionately about Carolina athletics,

that's not going to happen.

I have no doubt in my mind that North Carolina basketball

will not drop to that level.

So I don't think that's a legitimate concern.

To your question, I do think it's just a worst-case scenario.

I mean, there's just so many things going on.

And if you just had two of these things in one year,

that would be enough for there to be a lot of

controversy and confusion.

But when you talk about an athletic director transition,

when you talk about the arena decision,

which has plenty of controversy as well,

when you talk about the backdrop of conference realignment

in the years to come,

that's a big part of it.

The Bill Bell check experiment is ongoing and it was a mess last year.

And there's been a lot of focus on that.

There's a lot of irons in the fire.

And that's not an excuse.

That's just stating what's going on.

So there's a lot of different things in play.

And yes, I think ideally,

with football being in the situation that is in,

you need Carolina basketball to continue to be the standard bear.

While football is king in terms of revenue,

everybody associates University of North Carolina with the basketball program.

And so it's important that you have a very solid base in that area.

And that's why I think a lot of people, given Hubert's background,

a lot of pretty much everybody really wants Hubert to succeed.

It wanted him to succeed.

And now we're in this difficult situation where he just has not had the level of success

that's kind of required from this position.

And I think if there have been a little bit more success throughout the course of the year,

or maybe even this weekend,

then you can just punt and say, okay, we're going to invest more in the program and we'll give

them another shot. Now you have to make a legitimate decision. It's not just, okay,

we're going to give them one more year.

So, okay, are we going to do enough and can he do enough with what we give him

that this is set up for success in the years to come?

Because what you don't want to get into is a year by year situation.

That's no good for anybody.

So, I do think that this is a critically important decision for the university to make.

And if you can have this situation set up and you can have,

if you decide to move forward, if that's the decision that's made and you bring in somebody,

that's a big name and everybody kind of rallies around that higher.

It takes so much pressure off everything else.

But when nothing is operating the way it needs to be,

in football or in basketball or with some of these conversations about the Smith Center,

it just puts an incredible amount of stress on the entire conversation.

So, I think you're right. They're all interconnected.

But you need to get one of these things right.

You need to have a home run with something soon.

And I think that's kind of where we're at is they're looking at it from the lens of,

what can we do to score a win?

That's very important for the athletic department.

And that sets us up for success moving forward.

Because what you don't want to have happen is for this to linger on for another year or two

without any dramatic improvement.

Yeah, I agree. I don't, if you get this wrong, then the Smith Center stuff,

nobody's going to be happy or everybody's not going to be happy no matter what you do on that.

Um, conference realignment, nobody's, there's going to be controversy from different factions

on whatever happens there. But if you get a basketball coach that everybody can rally around,

I think you bring everybody together and at least somewhat get it back under the same tent.

Last question, I should leave it on this, what you just talked about, but I do want to ask this.

Some fear that Caroline is not willing to go all in on basketball.

To use a phrase they used on football is there, and you mentioned earlier, there's no doubt in your

mind that the slippage will not be allowed. Just sort of flesh that out a little bit more. I mean,

who, if they get a court on big, big name, it's going to cost a lot of money.

They've shown the whittlingness on the football side and it crashed or it's crashed so far,

it's still a chance. Does that give anybody pause on this side in your opinion?

I don't think so. And I think we talked about it, Tommy, the day that Bill Belicek was announced

as UNC's football coach. The importance of that hire was not that they hired Bill Belicek.

The importance of that hire was that North Carolina decided to step across the line

to say we're making a commitment that we have never done before for football.

There was conversations before they decided to go with Belicek of paying the next football coach

$5 million, which is the exact same that Mac Brown was making.

And there was this massive leap of saying, okay, Belicek wants 10. That's double.

Can we do this? Do we have the guts to do this? And the answer was yes.

In even with the football season playing out the way that it did last year, I think that decision

kind of woke everybody up to like, hey, we can do this. We can handle this.

We've got to do more fundraising. We've got to be more opportunistic and how we approach

revenue generation, which is why they've hired a CFO and those types of things for the athletic

department. So I think there is a firm understanding in place now that Carolina knows that they

have to spend money to make money. And some of that involves risk. And that's just part of it.

And so because of that, I don't think there's any question whatsoever that Carolina is in position

in willing to make a sizable offer to the right candidate. I don't think it's going to be another

situation where Carolina is trying to say, hey, we're Carolina. I know we can't pay you as much

as some of these other schools may be, but we've got the tradition. I think those days are over.

I think this is, hey, this is Carolina. This is one of the top brands in the country. We're going

to pay you what you deserve. Come help us get back on track. Whatever that decision may be.

So I don't think there's any concern from my perspective just in talking with people about that.

I think, you know, with Lee Roberts being in place, he understands that the financials of it

better than any chancellor that North Carolina has had before. You've Steve Newmark

is a guy coming in from NASCAR with an outside perspective. He views it through a different lens.

And don't underestimate the value of public hunting him with his experience. You kind of give

you that well-rounded approach so that there's a lot of good insight available to make these types

of decisions if Carolina decides ultimately to move forward. So I don't think money is going to be

a concern. I'm glad I asked the question because that is a great answer. And a lot of people who have

been on the message boards or out in the ether asking about that Greg Barnes sort of lays it out.

Greg, I'm going to end it here. It's Friday, Friday afternoon at this moment.

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Johnny T shirt. Greg, appreciate it. Thanks, Tommy. Whether you're solving murders during breakfast,

cracking cold cases on your commute or playing amateur detective at bedtime,

Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon Music app and

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