A new name is emerging as a Hubert Davis replacement and he has a lot to prove this weekend

It’s getting odd that North Carolina hasn’t fired Hubert Davis yet, but at this point, it would be almost impossible to bring him back to Chapel Hill. So, let’s operate under the fairly safe assumption that athletic director Bubba Cunningham and the North Carolina are about to undergo an extension coaching search. 

Davis was an internal hire, and most speculation about his replacement has stayed much closer to home, with Florida’s Todd Golden emerging as the favorite to take over and Alabama’s Nate Oats trailing close behind. However, Dan Wolken of Yahoo Sports thinks that the Tar Heels could and should look west for their next head coach. 

“I thnk the person that they will and should initially target is Tommy Lloyd from Arizona,” Wolken said on Yahoo Sports Daily on Monday. 

Tommy Lloyd has a major hurdle left to clear at Arizona

Over his five years as the head coach of the Wildcats, the 51-year-old Lloyd has gone an impressive 146-35, and this season led them to their first-ever Big 12 title just two years after joining the conference. 

The former Mark Few assistant has made the NCAA Tournament every year as a head coach and has never been lower than a No. 4 seed. This season is his second time in the Big Dance with a No. 1 seed. Yet, he’s never seen the Elite Eight. 

Three times, Lloyd’s teams have been knocked off in the Sweet 16, all but one in upset fashion, and he has a major upset loss on his tournament resume, falling to 15th-seeded Princeton as a No. 2 seed in the first round three years ago. 

You’d be hard-pressed to find another young coach who has had that much success in their first major program job, and Lloyd had never been a head coach prior to taking over Tucson. He spent 20 years as an assistant under Few at Gonzaga before finally making the jump, and for all the regular-season dominance, his postseason resume is flat-out disappointing. 

As the top-seed in the West Region, Arizona will take on Arkansas in San Jose Thursday night with a chance to play either 11th-seeded Texas or Purdue, the No. 2 seed in the West, in the Elite Eight. It’s hard to boil a coach down to his record in a single-elimination tournament named for its inherent randomness. However, it’s also hard to sell North Carolina fans on a coach who has never made it past the Sweet 16 if he falls to John Calipari’s Razorbacks. Even Hubert Davis has done that. 

As Wolken pointed out, it may be difficult for North Carolina to pry Lloyd away from Arizona, which is a well-resourced program and one of the favorites to win the national championship. It would be a great hire if they did, but it gets a lot easier to sell to the fanbase if Lloyd finally gets to a Final Four as a head coach. That may also make it more difficult to convince him to leave.