Fans, media react to North Carolina’s reported hiring of Michael Malone
By Mark Kern
Published:
Fans and media across the basketball world had quite the reaction on Monday as it was reported that North Carolina is planning to hire former NBA coach Michael Malone as its next coach.
Malone has won 510 games as a head coach in the NBA, as well as an NBA Championship with Denver in 2023. However, his time ended abruptly in Denver, as he was fired by the Nuggets just before the start of the playoffs last year.
After Tommy Lloyd and Dusty May announced they were staying at Arizona and Michigan, the Tar Heels had to go a different way.
Here’s the best of the reaction to the news on social media:
The last time that Malone coached in college was in 2001 as an assistant at Manhattan. The move is especially shocking because North Carolina has long been known to hire internally, or bring someone in with ties to North Carolina.
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Malone is the first coach in 74 years that North Carolina has hired without any previous ties to the school.
The Tar Heels are bringing Malone in to get the program back competing for national championships. Hubert Davis had North Carolina in the NCAA Championship in his first season in Chapel Hill, but his team has been eliminated in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons.
