The exact terms Bubba Cunningham and North Carolina offered to Tommy Lloyd on the eve of his first Final Four appearance at Arizona will probably never surface. However, Matt Norlander of CBS Sports gave a glimpse on Friday after Lloyd signed his deal to return to Arizona for $7.2 million a year.
Norlander reported that Lloyd took less than UNC offered to stay in Tucson, and that UNC’s offer would have made him a top-two highest-paid head coach in the sport, which we all know means No. 2 or else he would’ve said highest-paid. No. 2 would have put Lloyd somewhere behind Bill Self, who makes about $8.8 million a year at Kansas, and ahead of John Calipari, who gets paid $8 million a year by Arkansas.
Sources: UNC offered Tommy Lloyd a top-two contract in CBB. Lloyd took less to stay, but will still bump up to $7.2 million starting next season. Staff pool also will get a huge bump + incentives brought back to their contract structures. He'll also no longer report to the AD. https://t.co/irS6aGzVz3
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) April 3, 2026
UNC would have made Tommy Lloyd the second-highest-paid head coach in the country
When St. Bonaventure hired Mike MacDonald from Daemen University to replace Mark Schmidt this offseason, they were looking for a coach they could underpay relative to the rest of the A10, so they could spend the savings on their roster. They paid MacDonald about half of what Schmidt’s salary was.
The idea to underpay a head coach and direct the rest of the funds to the court is a burgeoning philosophy in the NIL and revenue-sharing era; the bleeding-edge roster construction trends. With this hire, UNC was not interested in being the first to capitalize on a market inefficiency. It wants a proven head coach who can get the Tar Heels competing for a championship again, and clearly, is not afraid to pay top dollar to secure one.
Lloyd’s deal would have been over twice as much as Davis’s salary in his final season ($3.75 million). However, for a program that spent $14 million on its roster last season, funds are not a concern. And frankly, the economics of the sport work differently at a program like UNC. Paying top dollar for a coach can actually increase the amount the Tar Heels have to spend on a coach by activating their massive donor base, exciting about a new era in Chapel Hill. Lloyd would have done just that, and it’s wild that he turned the Tar Heels down.
Arizona is a good program. It has a national championship in its history. But before this season, it hadn’t been back to the Final Four since 2001, and Lloyd had never gotten past the Sweet 16. To turn down the Tar Heels for less money in Tucson is a bold move from Lloyd, and it took a really creative deal from Arizona, allowing him to report to Arizona’s president, Suresh Garimella, rather than its athletic director, Desireé Reed-Francois.
Now, UNC needs to set its sights on another big-name hire, because the Tar Heels are running out of options who are worth that $8+ million deal.