North Carolina ADs do late-night podcast explaining Hubert Davis firing

It was a disappointing end to the season for North Carolina Basketball. This ultimately led to the decision by North Carolina to fire Hubert Davis on Tuesday.

On Tuesday night, AD Bubba Cunningham and Executive Associate AD Steve Newmark joined the Carolina Insider Podcast to discuss the change in the leadership of the basketball program.

Both Cunningham and Newark began by praising Davis and what he has meant to the university.

“I mean, anytime you make a decision like this, it’s a difficult one, but it’s magnified when it’s somebody like Hubert Davis who has given his blood, sweat, and tears to this university, first as a student, student athlete, and as an assistant coach, and then as a coach, and he has been an exemplary role model for all of the players that he has mentored during this time,” Newark said. “And he really has embodied everything that we would want as a representative of our university.”

Davis played at UNC from 1988 through 1992 and would return as an assistant coach in 2012. He took over as the head coach for the 2021-22 season. After leading UNC to the National Championship game in 2022, the team missed the tournament the next year. In 2023-24, the Heels rebounded to win the regular season ACC title and move on to the Sweet 16. Still, the team has been fourth in the conference and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament each of the last two years.

“At the end of the day, when we’re looking at what the expectations are for this program, I think we believe that we’re the most elite program in the country, and you know our aspirations each year are to compete for wins, championships, and ultimately the national championship,” Newark continued. “And I think Bubba and I, after having lots of discussions, decided that for us to continue to maintain that status, we needed to look for a different leader.”

Cunningham and Newark will now be looking for their next head coach. This will be just the fifth time the university has had to hire a head coach since the team hired Dean Smith in 1961.

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