College basketball insider reveals North Carolina’s ‘sole focus’ for next head coach
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College basketball insider Jeff Goodman was in Indianapolis on Sunday, smack in the middle of Final Four weekend, with Michigan and UConn set to play for the national championship on Monday night.
But on the off day in between Saturday night’s national semifinals and Monday night’s national championship game, there were other topics in the sport to talk about. One of them is the coaching search that has gotten huge attention over the past couple weeks, since North Carolina fired Hubert Davis and started sifting through a ton of top names in the college world as well as the NBA.
Speaking of the NBA, that’s where Goodman focused his attention during Sunday’s report on North Carolina’s coaching saga. The NBA is where Billy Donovan resides right now, with the former Florida coaching legend leading the Chicago Bulls. Donovan won 2 national titles in Gainesville in 2006 and 2007, building his legend at Florida until 2015, when he left for the NBA. Donovan coached the Oklahoma City Thunder from 2015-20 before starting his run in Chicago the next season.
Goodman believes that run in the NBA could be ending because North Carolina is squarely focused on Donovan right now as it potentially tries to lure him back to the college game. During a roundtable discussion Sunday on a number of topics, Goodman revealed where UNC is right now and who that focus is on.
“North Carolina is now solely focusing its effort on Billy Donovan. They’re going to go hard after him, per sources. They expect to know more in the next 24 hours,” Goodman said.
With North Carolina’s coaching search continuing, the Kalshi market has weighed in with its current odds on the top candidates to ultimately land the illustrious position in Chapel Hill:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
