CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Midway through North Carolina’s regular-season finale against rival Duke last week, video boards inside the Dean Smith Center lit up with two program greats: Tyler Hansbrough and Justin Jackson, who starred on UNC’s most recent national championship teams.
As Hansbrough stood and whipped the crowd into a frenzy, fans around him erupted — including one bespectacled bystander seated nearby.
But that man was no ordinary fan; it was Jim Tanner, the longtime NBA agent and 1990 UNC graduate who North Carolina hired as its first general manager on Feb. 25.
“Kind of a no-brainer hire,” said Hansbrough, formerly represented by Tanner, as was Jackson. “He’s very well-connected, and he understands a lot about the program that a lot of people on the outside wouldn’t.”
UNC is betting big that Hansbrough is right. Because hiring Tanner was no luxury decision, but rather a necessary move by a program sorely in need of modernizing, according to multiple program and industry sources who spoke with The Athletic and were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor.
After missing the NCAA Tournament only four times from 1975 until 2021, Roy Williams’ final season, Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels could miss the Big Dance for the second time in three seasons, though a late surge has put them squarely on the bubble entering Selection Sunday. UNC (22-13) is coming off a gut-punch loss Friday to Duke in the semifinals of the ACC tournament, leaving it 0-3 vs. the Blue Devils this season.
And while Davis’ job isn’t in jeopardy after agreeing to a contract extension last summer with his alma mater through the 2029-30 season, it would be an understatement to say that he and UNC cannot afford another down season.
Carolina Names Jim Tanner Men’s Basketball Executive Director & General Manager
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) February 25, 2025
Enter Tanner, whose hiring has been met with universal praise in the basketball industry. But according to multiple sources, there’s a reason why Tanner will make seven figures — believed to be the most of any college basketball GM — and why his tenure will not be directly tied to Davis’ status as head coach. North Carolina tabbed Tanner to finally get its arms around the two keystones that have defined UNC’s recent inconsistencies: navigating the transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL).
“I have no question,” Davis said, “about this being exactly what this program needs.”
According to UNC, Tanner will “manage the construction of the roster, negotiate contracts, identify and hire new scouting and analytics staff and spearhead player development programs.”
That in turn should free Davis up to focus on coaching basketball. His strength is as an X’s and O’s tactician, according to people in and outside the program — though that has been questioned this season given the Tar Heels’ struggles against top competition, which left them floundering at 14-11 in early February.
There are still questions, in spite of UNC’s late-season turnaround and its plan for the future, including:
How did North Carolina get to this point in the first place?
It isn’t like nobody saw college basketball’s increasing professionalization coming.
“Two years before I retired, I made the statement that we need to get in front of this,” Williams said, “and we didn’t get in front of it enough, kind of thing, if we’ve gotten in front of it at all.”
Williams retired in April 2021, months before the NCAA was forced to approve the legalization of NIL, and was replaced by his longtime assistant. Davis’ initial moves as head coach — namely, plucking stretch forward Brady Manek out of the transfer portal — suggested an understanding of the direction things were headed. Manek’s hot shooting proved integral to UNC’s run to the national championship game during Davis’ debut season.
But Davis’ success building through the transfer portal would prove inconsistent.
His key transfer addition the next season, Pete Nance, never found his footing, and UNC became the first preseason No. 1 team since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1984-85 to miss the field altogether. Most of that team then transferred — and as he had in his first offseason, Davis nailed the roster build again in the summer of 2023. Harrison Ingram (from Stanford) and Cormac Ryan (from Notre Dame) became starters on the first UNC team in five years to win the ACC regular season and earn a No. 1 seed in March Madness.
But last summer only solidified how outdated UNC’s infrastructure really was.
The overarching issue? Sources point to a place operating from an old-school mindset, to a detrimental extent. That starts with Davis, whose unwillingness to hire outside the UNC family — all of his assistants are former Tar Heels, a stated requirement of his — has created an insular environment in Chapel Hill that limits new ideas that could help the program modernize, sources said. Especially in an era with so much uncertainty, where rules and best practices change rapidly, industry sources said North Carolina wasn’t quick to adapt.
Hubert Davis and UNC will find out Sunday if they made the NCAA Tournament. (Jim Dedmon / Imagn Images)
Which directly correlates to the Tar Heels failing to land any of their top frontcourt targets last summer — despite knowing they were losing Armando Bacot, their all-time leading rebounder, and Ingram, who was drafted 48th overall.
While NCAA rules prohibit tampering with other teams’ players before the season ends, it is commonplace for players — through agents, family or another back channel — to communicate their interest in transferring much earlier. That way, coaches can begin planning and budgeting. Essentially, a player submitting their name into the NCAA’s database is often the final step before joining a new school.
But last offseason, according to sources, North Carolina did not begin transfer recruiting in earnest until players officially entered the portal — leaving the Tar Heels behind, and often, flat-footed. One program source added that UNC’s issue was less the dollar amount it was offering players, and more so when it offered — namely, too late.
For example, a program source said that had UNC made earlier communication with former Kentucky forward Adou Thiero, it likely could have landed him before a public bidding war. Thiero ultimately followed John Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas. The 6-foot-6 forward — who would have slotted into Davis’ all-important stretch-four role — averaged a team-best 15.6 points and six rebounds per game this season before a recent knee injury.
The only high school big UNC signed was three-star developmental forward James Brown, who played 49 total minutes this season (19 points, 14 rebounds). The Tar Heels eventually added two other bigs via the transfer portal: Ven-Allen Lubin and Ty Claude. While Lubin has emerged as a starter and post presence, averaging 13.8 points over UNC’s final nine games, Claude — like Brown — has been an afterthought.
“It should be totally unacceptable at the University of North Carolina that (they) didn’t address either the five or the four,” said one NBA scout. “If this was the NBA level, somebody would get fired.”
But that example hints at another area in which UNC’s thinking may be outdated. It can’t expect players to sign just because of its brand, the scout said.
“Ultimately, you’re going to have to get into the bidding war aspect,” the scout said.
Part of UNC’s transfer portal pitch, sources said, was the additive nature of the school’s brand: that in addition to guaranteed NIL payments, incoming transfers could expect to receive more lucrative endorsement opportunities than they would elsewhere. Bacot had as many endorsements as any player in the sport last season — but that pitch didn’t resonate when compared with higher guarantees from other schools.
“It’s not the old, ‘Come in here and fight for the old Carolina blue’ stuff anymore,” Williams said. “It’s a professional level, is what it is.”
To that same point, until last offseason, the NIL deals that UNC players agreed upon with the program were not always committed to writing, sources said. While the Tar Heels now put all their NIL agreements in writing — the industry standard, which protects schools as much as players — they previously went off handshake agreements. Former Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton is being sued by six former players over alleged missed NIL payments stemming from unwritten agreements.
Lastly, North Carolina’s failed pursuit of frontcourt reinforcements may, ironically, have been tied to retaining one of its best players.
The logic is that because of graduate guard RJ Davis’ accomplishments, the consensus first-team All-American last season was always going to be UNC’s highest-paid player this season. But that created complications when at least one top frontcourt target, according to multiple sources, set an asking price above what RJ Davis was set to make. UNC donors, sources added, balked at the idea of paying more to a player they had no ties to.
As this season got underway, Davis, his staff and the school’s administration understood change was necessary. Davis’ announcement at his Feb. 3 radio show that he would hire a general manager, then, was not the product of some eureka moment, but rather months of conversations behind the scenes. And by voicing that intention when he did, it gave Davis time to hire someone — Tanner, ultimately — before the end of the regular season. That way, the GM had time to not only get up to speed on the current roster and NCAA rules, but also to better position the Tar Heels before the portal opens March 24.
“I don’t have a specific date when I woke up and (went), ‘Wow, this is something that is needed,’” Davis said. “You should always be in a position of listening and learning, and there are times you’re going to have to tweak, pivot, alter and change things and be able to adapt — and that’s something I’ve always been willing to do.”
Almost exactly a month ago, North Carolina was 14-11, far off the NCAA Tournament bubble and reeling from double-digit losses to rival Duke and Clemson. The Tar Heels’ body language against Clemson, especially, was that of a group on the verge of giving up.
UNC’s season was on the brink.
“Definitely a lot of ‘lack of chemistry’ moments and splintering going on at the beginning of the season,” graduate forward Jae’Lyn Withers said during this week’s ACC tournament. “Trying to figure out where guys fit in, what shots are good, what shots aren’t. Things like that — that now we have a better feel for.”
It wasn’t just UNC’s record that was the issue; it was how the Tar Heels — one of college basketball’s bluest bloods, one of only four programs with six NCAA titles — looked completely outmatched against many of their contemporaries. In the team’s five marquee nonconference games — against Kansas, Auburn, Michigan State, Alabama and Florida — it trailed by 20, 19, 14, 18 and 17 points, losing every contest.
And despite the team’s recent strides, it was a familiar story Friday, when Duke led by as many as 24 points early in the second half before a dramatic UNC near-comeback. Davis preaches “the discipline and the details,” but that’s what bit the team, when a lane violation with 4.1 seconds left cost North Carolina the chance at a score-tying free throw.
Davis’ team still has only one win all season against an expected NCAA Tournament team (UCLA).
Davis’ job security eventually came under question — until the contract extension, agreed to last summer but signed in December, came to light in late February, upping his buyout to $6.25 million. A program source confirmed Davis will return next season.
Given UNC’s ill-fitting roster construction, with its surplus of diminutive guards and dearth of high-end bigs, it seemed like the Tar Heels were headed for a lost season.
But then, like in his debut season, Davis summoned something that reversed his team’s fortune. After that defeat to Clemson, when UNC was at its lowest, the Tar Heels won eight of their next 10 games to force their way back onto the NCAA Tournament bubble. Making the First Four in Dayton, or being one of the last teams in, still isn’t up to North Carolina’s standard, but it would be a heck of a lot better than not dancing.
And for those efforts, industry sources and his coaching peers applauded Davis.
“Definitely credit to Hubert for A) blocking out the incredible (criticism) that comes with that job, and B) keeping them engaged and believing — because they were teetering,” said one ACC coach. “He did a really good job coaching them down the stretch and keeping them believing, which sometimes is the hardest thing to do.”
Said Hansbrough: “To keep the locker room, keep the guys motivated, to continue to improve — that says a lot about a coach.”
That isn’t to say that Davis maximized his talent all season, but his lineup tweaks, schematic adjustments and relentless motivation kept UNC’s season from going entirely off the rails.
His new starting five, for example, spurred this late-season turnaround. Davis has started seven different lineups (not counting senior night) and played a staggering 27 lineups at least 15 total minutes this season, per CBB Analytics, the most of his tenure. Those lineups have run the gamut stylistically, too: from super small — with four sub-6-foot-4 guards — to small-er, with 6-foot-6 wing Drake Powell moonlighting as an undersized stretch-four, to a traditional two-big setup. That last one is where Davis eventually struck gold, with 6-8 Lubin and 6-9 Withers.
Since Davis went to that starting lineup against Clemson, UNC is 8-3 and ranks as the 22nd best team in the country, per Bart Torvik, with the 14th-best adjusted offensive efficiency. Still, only three of those victories came against top 100 opponents.
“I was just trying to find my role here,” Lubin said, “and just knowing that we have a lot of exterior shooters and were trying to find an interior presence, I was willing to take on that role.”
Lubin’s post scoring and rim protection have been a boon for a team that lived and died by jumpers until February. And Withers is shooting 48 percent from 3 since entering the starting lineup against Clemson. He has, like Manek and Ingram before him, given the Tar Heels more than just another perimeter shooter; his rebounding and athleticism have also aided UNC’s recent defensive growth.
About that. Davis has similarly had to dig deep tactically on defense, where the Tar Heels’ size disadvantage was a recurring issue. “There’s only so much one can do schematically,” the NBA scout said, “to offset the relative talent deficiency.” But Davis has at least tried going man-to-man, and he’s also toyed with zone. For ball screen coverages, he’s tried switching everything, hard hedging and forcing a ballhandler toward the sideline (icing), per his four-year preference. UNC has at times applied full-court pressure or half-court pressure, but it’s also sat back in drop coverage.
Nothing has been the ultimate fix, and with this roster? There realistically isn’t one. But Davis’ experimenting reflects a coach unwilling to accept his team’s flaws.
“He sees the problems. He’s not just ignoring it, like a bunch of haters claim,” said junior guard Seth Trimble. “He’s done a really good job these last few weeks, making those adjustments. … The jump that we’ve made on the offensive and defensive end has been crazy.”
But the Tar Heels’ fate is still out of their hands (even with athletic director Bubba Cunningham chairing the NCAA selection committee). To ensure that doesn’t happen again next season or anytime soon, the program believes it’s finally taking the necessary steps, largely by putting its trust in Tanner.
(Top photo of Duke guard Caleb Foster and North Carolina guard RJ Davis: Bob Donnan / Imagn Images)
