Hubert Davis saw his Tar Heels blow a 19-point lead to VCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and now the season finale of his weekly radio show, scheduled for Monday night, has been postponed.
That’s about as clear a signal as the University of North Carolina is going to send before making anything official. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Sunday that Davis is not expected to return as head coach, and that any departure would be an orchestrated resignation rather than an outright firing, while UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham told CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein that he and incoming AD Steve Newmark and Chancellor Lee Roberts are “evaluating all facets of the program” and will “continue to have discussions over the coming days.”
The postponement of Hubert Davis Live, announced Sunday by Tar Heels voice Jones Angell, was the university’s way of not putting Davis in an impossible position on Monday night while those conversations play out.
Tomorrow’s scheduled season finale of the “Hubert Davis Live!” radio show has been postponed.
We will communicate any future scheduling updates. pic.twitter.com/VbAZwxt4pe
— Jones Angell (@JonesAngell) March 22, 2026
In what could’ve been Davis’s last game at the helm, his Tar Heels led by 19, allowed the largest comeback in first-round NCAA Tournament history, went scoreless in overtime except for three free throws, and lost 82-78. It was the second consecutive year UNC bowed out in the Round of 64, and the third time in Davis’s five seasons that the program either missed the tournament entirely or lost in the first round. For a program that measures itself in Final Fours, that’s not a trajectory anyone in Chapel Hill can comfortably defend.
Davis is a Tar Heel lifer in every sense. He played under Dean Smith, spent 12 years in the NBA, spent seven years at ESPN as a college basketball analyst, rejoined the staff under Roy Williams in 2012, and was Williams’ hand-picked successor when Williams retired in 2021. Since a storybook season that culminated in the No. 8 seed making the national championship game, beating Duke twice along the way, including in Coach K’s final home game, Davis hasn’t been able to recapture that early success.
A formal announcement, per Thamel, is not imminent, but the direction is clear enough that the radio show didn’t need to happen.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.