UNC Basketball: Hubert Davis earning money and recognition

First-year UNC basketball head coach Hubert Davis is winning games and proving naysayers wrong, and he’s earning extra money and recognition along the way.

The North Carolina Tar Heels were merely a bubble team a month ago, and now they’re just two days away from a date with the UCLA Bruins in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16.

It’s been a total team effort from the players to the coaches, including first-year head man Hubert Davis, who had the ire of fans wanting to see him fired just a few weeks into the season. Fast forward a few months and he’s the proud owner of 26 wins, a second-place finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend.

Now, it appears that the much-maligned successor to Hall-of-Fame head coach Roy Williams is finally getting some recognition for all of his hard work.

On Wednesday evening, The University of North Carolina released a complete list of awards that Davis has been nominated for following his impressive first season as the top guy in Chapel Hill.

Davis is a finalist for the Skip Prosser Award for Man of the Year, the Ben Jobe Award for Division I Minority Coach of the Year, the Joe B. Hall Award for the nation’s top first-year head coach, and the Jim Phelan Award for National Coach of the Year.

And thanks to his continued success this season, Davis is earning some extra cash. In addition to his $1.75 million annual salary, Davis has picked up bonuses of $25,000 for making it to the NCAA Tournament and $75,000 for both the Round of 32 and the Sweet 16.

If Davis can lead his team to the Elite Eight, he’ll earn an extra $200,000. He would get another $200,000 for making it to this year’s Final Four in New Orleans and a cool quarter-million for a national championship victory.

This weekend in Philadelphia could be big for Davis’ team and his wallet.

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