North Carolina is set to hire Michael Malone as its next men’s basketball coach, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel, making an outside-the-box choice for a school seeking a return to its spot among the sport’s elite programs.
Malone, who spent over two decades as either a head coach or an assistant in the NBA, will inherit a Tar Heels team that has been seeking a head coaching replacement for nearly two weeks since firing Hubert Davis.
UNC had been linked to multiple high-profile college coaches, including Michigan‘s Dusty May, Arizona‘s Tommy Lloyd and Iowa State‘s T.J. Otzelberger. But after all three publicly committed to staying at their current schools, the Tar Heels turned to Malone, who previously spent 10 seasons as the head coach of the Denver Nuggets.
Malone, 54, is the winningest coach in Denver history, with a 471-327 career record, and led the Nuggets to their only NBA championship in 2023. He was fired by Denver last April and joined ESPN as an analyst one month later.
Davis was fired by UNC on March 24, five days after the Tar Heels squandered a 19-point lead in their first-round NCAA tournament loss to 11th-seeded VCU.
It marked the second straight year that UNC lost its NCAA tournament opener under Davis, who went 125-54 in five seasons coaching his alma mater.
The Tar Heels reached the national championship game in their first season under Davis, losing to Kansas, but failed to advance past the Sweet 16 in each of the past four seasons. UNC won the most recent of its six NCAA championships under Davis’ predecessor, Roy Williams, in 2017.
