In time, the North Carolina Tar Heels will find the right head coach to lead them. It has been a few weeks since UNC bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round. This resulted in them moving on from former head coach Hubert Davis. While firing one of your own is never easy, Davis needed to go. Unfortunately, Tommy Lloyd is no longer leaving Arizona to come take over the Tar Heels program.
Next man up appears to be Billy Donovan, but he may not be coming until after the NBA season ends.
"I have been told that Billy Donovan will not entertain a conversation with UNC until after the Chicago Bulls season is over...
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) April 3, 2026
I would expect names like Texas Tech's Grant McCasland, Vanderbilt's Mark Byington, and also Iowa's Ben McCollum to be on (UNC's) list." -… pic.twitter.com/fYw3aGfrgS
According to CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein, "Billy Donovan will not entertain a conversation with UNC until after the Chicago Bulls' season is over..." The NBA regular season will end next Sunday on April 12. Rothstein then went on to mention other candidates for the UNC gig. Those head coaches would include Grant McCasland at Texas Tech, Mark Byington at Vanderbilt, and Ben McCollum over at Iowa.
While UNC coud hire any of those college basketball coaches, here is why Donovan is a bit suspect.
North Carolina hiring Billy Donovan could set Tar Heels back considerably
Donovan may be Rick Pitino's greatest disciple, as well as the greatest head coach in Florida basketball history. He was just recently inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last year. However, there are three things working against Donovan right now when it comes to him taking over at UNC. Those would be his age, lack of success in the NBA, and time away from college.
Age is just a number, but Donovan will be turning 61 at the very end of May. Pitino may still be coaching into his 70s, but not everyone is cut from the same cloth as him or Tom Izzo. Since leaving Florida for the NBA in 2015, Donovan has won 53.6 percent of his games in 11 seasons split between the Oklahoma City Thunder (2015-20) and the Chicago Bulls (2020-present). The results are middling.
Since taking the 2015-16 Thunder to the Western Conference Finals in year one at the helm of that post, Donovan has either lost in the first round, or missed the playoffs entirely. That has been his fate as an NBA head coach for the last decade. Even more damning, Chicago has only made the playoffs once in his six years. This came in 2021-22, a first-round exit. Chicago has missed out on the last four.
Overall, we are looking at a former college basketball icon who has devolved into a pedestrianly mediocre NBA head coach. Granted, the Chicago job is not for the faint of heart. However, OKC has great basketball culture. He should have won more there. While a return to the college game could give Donovan the boost he may need, North Carolina does not need to be waiting for him to get right.
At this time, UNC is so far better served going after a hotshot head coach in the college game today.