Who will replace Roy Williams at North Carolina?

Roy Williams's successor may be right next to him. Hubert Davis left ESPN to become an assistant coach nine years ago and many feel he was being groomed for this moment. Davis played four seasons for Dean Smith and would play 12 years in the NBA ... under coaches like Pat Riley, Larry Brown, Doug Collins, and Don Nelson. His NBA ties have made him a lead recruiter for the Tar Heels over the years which would be valuable if he's to stay at Carolina. The knock on him is that he has no prior head coaching experience, but he has been the coach of the junior varsity team. There are rumblings out there that he may be the front runner for the job. 

Miller played for Roy Williams and was a member of the Tar Heels' 2005 national championship team. Williams has taken Miller under his wing since then and has often said Miller got more out of his potential than any other player he coached. Since Miller took the UNCG job a decade ago, he talks to Williams constantly with a father-son type relationship. Miller took a downtrodden Spartans program and has been to two NCAA tournaments, including this year's dance. He has a no-nonsense style and prides on his teams playing defense. If the school decides to stay in the Carolina family, Miller may be best positioned to get the job. Miller's brother just finished up his senior season at North Carolina. 

The Gonzaga head coach is a bit busy with his team playing in the Final Four, attempting to be the first team since 1976 to finish a season as undefeated champions, but this makes some sense. Roy Williams and Mark Few are close friends (they love to share a story of their exploits one tournament weekend in Memphis) and Few has a lot of traits similar to Roy. They are humble, family-oriented and Few loves to run a high attack offense that Williams coveted at Carolina. If Gonzaga finishes off with a championship, he could be more inclined to leave the school he's been at for 30 years as a job finished -- and one of the amazing jobs any coach has done. Few hasn't come close to leaving Spokane yet, but jobs like North Carolina don't come along often. 

Stackhouse played at Carolina from 1993-1995 and his jersey hangs in the rafters of the Dean Smith Center. He had a long NBA career, coached the Raptors' D-League team to a championship, and has been the head coach at Vanderbilt for two years. While his Vanderbilt teams have failed to get going, he is well thought of at all three levels of basketball that he could successfully recruit NBA-type talent to North Carolina. He's been a mentor to young players in the state of North Carolina and is well respected by his NBA peers. His struggles at Vanderbilt may hurt his candidacy a bit. 

Many people don't realize how old the rivalry is between North Carolina and Virginia is. The sports programs, the schools and the states have always been rivals of some sort for nearly as long as the country has been alive. So to hear that Tony Bennett would leave Virginia for North Carolina is a bit of a shocker. But Bennett is, like Williams, a humble guy who is about family and cares deeply about his players. His slow style may not play well for a program that has been at the forefront of offensive innovation for decades, but his winning will. As North Carolina and Duke have been doing well, Virginia has become a dominant force in the ACC, winning three of the last four regular season titles. Bennett played for the Charlotte Hornets, coached in the ACC, and has been in that fertile recruiting era for over a decade. He knows the ropes. Of course, he could stay in Charlottesville and be the Cavs' version of Dean Smith or Roy Williams. 

When Dean Smith retired in 1997, he turned the program over to his longtime assistant Bill Guthridge. "Coach Gut" would reach two Final Fours in three seasons before himself retiring. Robinson has been that guy for Roy Williams for over 26 years. Robinson worked with Williams at Kansas for six seasons before becoming head coach at Tulsa and Florida State. He took his teams to three NCAA tournaments during his 7-year stint as a head coach before returning to Kansas. He followed Roy to North Carolina and has been one of the players' favorite people of the program ... and has been relied on to fill in for Williams after ejections or health issues. Robinson is 63 and it would seem he would be more of a fill-in until UNC settles in on a longer-term coach (maybe to groom Hubert Davis a bit more).

Roy Williams thinks highly of Brad Stevens, so this is a candidate he'd sign off on. Stevens led Butler to consecutive national championship games a decade ago and has taken the Boston Celtics to three Eastern Conference Finals. Stevens was a popular choice for the Indiana job that was open a week ago but he shut that down quickly. Would he do the same if North Carolina called?

Holtmann is in that tier of coaches who has a great job at a big university but could be swayed to take one of the elite jobs. There's not much connecting Holtmann to North Carolina, aside from being a head coach at Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs, NC for three years, so this would have to be felt like a match made in heaven to happen. But Holtmann has won 20 or more games in eight straight seasons, spanning his time at Ohio State, Butler, and Gardner-Webb.

Drew may be a bit off the beaten path for North Carolina, but no coach has endured more of a program build than Drew. He took over a chaotic situation at Baylor and has the Bears in their first Final Four in 71 years by being an expert at on-the-fly roster building and an ability to adapt ... something North Carolina has found itself into. It may be hard to figure Drew would take the North Carolina job after not leaving Baylor for his home state Indiana job, though. 

Moton has been the head coach at North Carolina Central University for over a decade, winning three MEAC regular-season titles and four MEAC tournament championships. While he has no ties to UNC, he has been a fixture in the state since playing at NCCU (which is located in nearby Durham) in the mid-1990s. Moton is popular with players within the state and highly thought of in the Triangle area. 

Word is that Donovan has liked the North Carolina job for some time, and he could step right in and keep the program elite from Day One. Donovan, of course, won two national championships at Florida and had the Gators as one of the best programs in the country during the 2010s. His NBA stint with the Thunder and Bulls have been mildly successful, and that NBA experience would only help draw the best talent at a place like North Carolina. At issue is if he would leave the Chicago Bulls not even after one year to take a college job? A gig like North Carolina doesn't open often, but would Donovan be willing to jump ship already?

Oats is a coach on the rise. He crushed it as a head coach at Buffalo for four years, going 59-13 in his last two years, and now at Alabama, where they were the only power school to win both the conference regular season and tournament title. At 46 years old, he could be the coach at UNC for decades. The problem is he has no relationship at all with the program and his $10 million buyout is quite steep for a school that has other options. 

This would be a huge swing in a madly different way. Smith is an unabashed Carolina alum whose son K.J. just finished his three-year career as a Tar Heel this season. Smith is big in the grassroots of basketball, has been on TNT for a long time, and had a championship NBA career, so he would be immensely popular recruiting. At issue would be that he's never been a head coach before, so a job like North Carolina would be a daunting task. He played for Dean Smith and would have an extensive amount of people who could help him, but North Carolina already has all of what Smith offers without having him coach the team. This is too far outside the box. 

Probably a long shot, but North Carolina will likely make the call. Over the years, Roy Williams and Jay Wright have created a bond ... despite Villanova beating North Carolina on a buzzer-beating shot for the 2016 national championship. The two coaches have gotten together during the preseason to have "unofficial scrimmages" and Wright's style on and off the court fits neatly at Carolina. But Wright is a Philly guy and is at his dream job, where he's been able to create a modern blue blood program of his own.

UPDATE: Dana O’Neil of The Athletic has reported that Jay Wright is not interested in the North Carolina job. 

Mark Turgeon was an assistant for Larry Brown (another UNC alum) and stayed when Roy Williams first started at Kansas. Since then, he's been the head coach at Jacksonville State, Wichita State, Texas A&M, and now Maryland. He has been in the NCAA tournament in five of the last seven seasons (with a likely bid in the canceled 2020 tournament not counted). Despite his success at Maryland, he sits on a bit of a hot seat and a preemptive jump to North Carolina wouldn't be out of the question. Plus, while Turgeon has Roy Williams ties, he has none with the university. 

Haase played for Roy Williams at Kansas and came over with the rest of the coaching staff to North Carolina. So he has ties to the university. He also has been head of a power conference program for five years, as he's been the head coach for Stanford after a successful four-year stint at UAB. The problem is that he hasn't been to the tournament yet at Stanford and his record there is just 82-73. That wouldn't be much of a splash for a North Carolina program that has better options.