Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - UNCERTAINTY: How Hubert Davis' Departure from North Carolina Tar Heels Impacts Kansas Jayhawks

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Hubert Davis is out as head coach of North Carolina, sending shockwaves through college basketball. Could both the Tar Heels and Kansas Jayhawks find themselves in simultaneous coaching searches this offseason? The potential for high-stakes bidding wars, top candidate clashes, and a new era of recruiting power makes this a tumultuous landscape for blue blood programs. Derek Johnson examines Kansas’ coaching succession drama—from Bill Self’s uncertain future to emerging contenders like Jacque Vaughn, Chris Beard, and NBA veteran Billy Donovan. Insights cover financial hurdles, strategic threats in the transfer portal, and the effects of North Carolina’s impending overhaul on Jayhawk recruiting. Whether Self stays or steps aside, the episode explores how KU’s path could intersect with North Carolina’s next move—raising major questions about the future of two college basketball giants. Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub     Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at https://5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Mazda Like our players, we’re driven by the details. Highlights make the reel. But the work behind them makes it count.
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Huber Davis is officially out as head coach of North Carolina. We'll get to our favorite KU Hubert Davis memory. I bet you can guess what it is. But no, realistically, why this affects KU, could both schools be in the coaching search this offseason? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on?

Derek Johnson here with another episode of Locked on. on Jayhawks, a little bonus episode here as we go over Hubert Davis, fired by North Carolina. I think they had some specific terminology, not technically fired, but come on. We know what's going on here. So it is a big deal in the college basketball lens, right? In North Carolina, one of the blue blood's job opens up. But it also, I think, has certain ties to Kansas in terms of having an impact on Kansas in a couple different ways. chief amongst them is the idea that for KU, they could be in a coaching search either this year or soon, you would think, and how that could affect things. So we're going to break that all down. I also want to get into kind of an extension of our last episode we talked.

If Bill Self retires, what coaches should we go after? I heard a couple common names of what about this guy. So I want to go over a couple of those. And a new name has kind of entered the fold. So we'll get to all that on this bonus episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. So Huber Davis officially let go by North Carolina. I think they're paying like $5 million buyout or something like that. And it opens up one of the biggest jobs in the sport.

And obviously, as we wait on the Bill Self news, if Bill Self were to retire, it would open up two of the biggest jobs in the sport in the same freaking off season. And of course, the irony would be that, I mean, I know North Carolina technically opened up when Roy retired, but it really didn't because that was the succession plan. was to Hubert. So realistically, the last time both of them were open was in the same offseason two just because the Kansas coach left with Roy Williams for North Carolina. But that was one after the other. Kansas came open because North Carolina hired the Kansas coach. I mean, when's the last time that

both were open at the same exact time? And we don't know that Kansas is going to be open. So it is kind of hypothetical right now. But here's some of the reasons why I think this is not great for Kansas, right? First of all, let's say, let's say Bill Self does return for another year. Or I guess the same scenario applies if Bill Self's decision takes a little bit longer than North Carolina's. North Carolina is kind of jumping the new coach line over Kansas. And, you know, if Bill Self coaches another year or two, then, okay, you still have Bill Self as your head coach. So, and then you have more time for, I don't know, certain things to play out. Like, what if that gives you more time to identify more candidates or guys who we view as they're good candidates, but I like to see them do it a

little bit longer. They do it a little longer and confirm themselves as very good candidates for your job. So that could work to your benefit, could work to your favor. On the flip side is, what if North Carolina by jumping the line, so to speak, gets the coach that you wanted the most? You know, what if you wanted whoever it is, right? And we don't know who would take the jobs. We don't know who is comfortable leaving their place, whatever. Let's say they want, Tommy Lloyd or I don't know, Dusty May or, I don't know, T.J. Othelberger, like, whoever, right? And let's say that's Kansas's number one guy too. And I'm not saying that it is, but like, let's just go through that hypothetical.

And they hire him before Kansas even gets a chance to offer him and try to find that offer sheet. That would not be great for KU if you're losing that guy. Now, the good news is, I think as we went over some of our coaching candidates yesterday, yesterday, there is actually, I think, a good pool, a depth of pool of coaching options that you can offer the job to and still feel good about. But what happens if a couple of those guys are happy with where they're at? A couple of those guys don't get offered as much money as they want. A couple of those guys are happy with their transfer, I don't know, money that they're allowed at their certain school. A couple of those ago, right? And then you start crossing them off.

And then one of the ones that actually would have left for you is now at North Carolina. that's where it becomes certainly a little bit of an issue. And then we get into the standpoint of like the bidding war side of it, right? What if Kansas and North Carolina both want somebody and now it's creating a bidding war? And I don't know how North Carolina's financials are, but for Kansas, the word is that the financials ain't great. And so if you're Kansas, do you lose out on somebody by becoming a bidding war or do you end up overpaying somebody and you get them, but then you pay you pay.

them more than you wanted to and now all of a sudden you have less money to spend on your roster, right? A lot of reasons that's not great. The other part of this is this. Like, it could even be a bidding war that's made up by the agents. Like, what if the agent is playing off one of the schools that, hey, he's going to take this other job if you don't offer more, even if it's not true and you have to like, do you call the bluff or do you pay more, right? So that's not great for KU either. And then there's the last part of this, which is just the standpoint of like, I don't know, it felt like, and I say this, Caleb Wilson's going to be top 10 pick in the NBA draft, and he was a very highly recruited prospect.

But, you know, for so many years, like, I don't know, I think of North Carolina as being like, North Carolina was the one that was bringing in all like the five star top end guys, and Duke was bringing in the high end four stars that were developing in the program. That's switched somewhere along the way, but I can't help but wonder North Carolina with a new coach, are they going to start bringing in more of those top end five stars? And then that's just kind of another school you have to compete with for some of those top players. Whereas right now it feels like they get the occasional guy there, but they're not playing in that realm as much. So this is probably not great for KU, but certainly I will always remember the Hubert Davis era well because of what Kansas did in 2020.

That was certainly a fun game for KU and the National Championship. All right, let's talk about a couple other coaches that I asked about a few times in a couple of different places. and maybe a new candidate emerging for both the North Carolina and the Kansas jobs. Next. This episode of the show is brought to you by Robin Hood. What if sports were traded like markets? Now you can put your sports IQ to work in real time with Robin Hood prediction markets. It's not you against the house.

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Create an account. Use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase terms apply. Again, create an account. You're deemed code locked on L-O-C-E-D-O-O-N for $20 off. of the GameTime app today. Thanks again for joining us here on Lockdown Jayhawks. So we'll see how this impacts potential coaching. I mean, all of this stuff is potential, the hypothetical.

Like Bill Self just comes back and we don't have to worry about any of this stuff, right? Then it's just a conversation of which players are coming back and then we just get into the roster conversation. But right now we're just approaching it because we don't know what's going to happen and, you know, have to make a plan for what could potentially happen, right? So I released the coaching conversation. on yesterday's episode. Thank you every day

or if you already caught it. Talking about if Bill Self were to retire, who would be the guys that to me would be the top candidates and I tiered them out one through four. I got a couple guys, whether it was in person or Twitter, you know, somebody messaging me or whatever,

just kind of asking like, okay, where would this guy be potentially, right? That maybe I didn't list on the name. One of them was Jock Vaughn and the other was Chris Beard. So let's start with Jock Vaughn. So to me, I kind of said that like

Tier 1 would be like an A plus higher to me. Tier two would be like an A-A-a-minus somewhere in that range, depending on the coach. Tier 3 would be like a B-B-B-plus. Tier 4 would be like a B-minus C-plus. And then I didn't get to tier 5. I didn't have time and didn't figure I needed to get down to that part of list. But that would be closer to like the CC-M minus, where I know that doesn't sound good, but that is still a passing grade.

The idea of me being able to be like, okay, this is fine. It passed, but I'm not going to be like ecstatic about it. You know, I'm not buying one of those seventh grade honor roll stickers for the back of my car to put on there for, you know, getting to see my guess you wouldn't be on honor roll. But you know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to get super pumped about it, but like I can understand it, I guess. But to that notion, that would be jock bond to me. It wouldn't like excite me, but I could understand why you got there. You know, it would be somebody with NBA coaching experience.

The downside is that like whatever. adding him you thought was going to do, your offense actually had a worse season this year than last year. So it's not like it had the impact that you were kind of hoping for. The flip side is, you know, when you think of Joch Vaughn playing for Roy Williams and you think of it being an NBA system, you think of it like it would probably be a pretty different system from what Bill Self would do. So how much can we rely on this past year? I don't entirely know, to be completely honest with you. you know, how would he do from a recruiting standpoint? Would he want a GM?

I think having a GM would be a good thing. It just kind of all depends on some of the side pieces. You know, how much are the donors willing to support and stuff like that could potentially raise that a little bit for me? But yeah, if it could be a fine hire, I just would definitely prefer those other ones over John Vaughn. I guess is kind of where I'm at, but just I would be okay if that's where it landed, especially if we found out that it was more of a money thing, although to the counterpoint,

be disappointing if KU wasn't able to afford one of the better coaches being one of the royalty programs in college basketball. As far as Chris Beard goes, my short answer is no. He had a nice run in the SEC tournament, but like disaster season at Ole Miss. Now, I will say this, I have heard from multiple. These are people that don't even know each other. None of it has come within the last year because Ole Miss did not have a good season this year. So I think some of that kind of faded away. But this stuff was happening like a year, sometimes even two years ago, about the bill self, obviously boys with Chris Beard kind of wanted Chris Beard to be his successor. Now, and I'm sure Chris Beard would love to take that job. Now, who knows if that's true or not?

That's just kind of what I was hearing. Beyond the off the court thing, which, you know, kind of disgusting with what happened there, I do think the on the court. resume has been a little bit overblown for Chris Beard. Here's the thing. Do you know how many seasons Chris Beard has had with single digit losses? The answer is one. He had a great season with Texas Tech. More power to him.

Took Texas Tech to a title game. They nearly won the game, if not for DeAndre Hunter hitting a corner three, right? That was their lone season with single digit losses. Here are some of the seasons. And these have been a power schools. This is Texas Tech, Texas, Mississippi, which, you know, in the case of Ole Miss, and when he got to Texas Tech, we're not the easy. his places to win in their conference, but you have power four, your power five resources,

whatever. Here's the amount of losses he had per season. 14, 10, 7, 13, 11, 12, 12, 12, 20. Here are the top offenses that he has had, or here's just his offensive rankings he's had as a D1 basketball coach. 98, 44th, 50th, 25th, 47th, 32nd, 26th, 54th, 22nd, 93rd. I'm just not really a huge crisp beard guy. I've also heard some stories like during the title game of him kind of choking a little bit.

And Mark Adams kind of stepping up to fill in it. I'm just not a crisp beard guy. I don't really want to entertain that. And to be honest, I don't know how much Travis Gough would either. What about a potential new name in the coaching search for either of these Blue Bloods? If Kansas were to open and certainly North Carolina, I'll get to that next. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by five-hour energy. Welcome to the five-hour energy flavor draft with 18 different flavor.

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Don't forget and check out the Everydayer Club. Join our Discord, chat with us during the off season. You also get the ad-free version of the show, Lockdown Podcasts.com slash Everydayer. Use code March. Get your first month free. So a new coach potentially could enter into the fold here for this is really any coaching candidates, but I think, you know, especially with North Carolina being open right now, obviously becomes pertinent. But, you know, if Kansas were to open, does it become kind of interesting here?

So this came from Joe Cowley, who is a, works for the newspaper, The Sun Times, which is a big newspaper in Chicago. So obviously, you know, covering the bowls and everything. Here's what he said. Quote, Donovan, this is Billy Donovan, who. is the former Florida coach who went back-to-back titles at Florida, then had some more success after that, and then eventually went to the NBA, was with the Thunder and then goes to the Bulls.

He's been with the Bulls forever. Anyway, Donovan could step away from the mess and take a season to reevaluate what he wants from the profession. So, okay, the take a season away would imply that, no, you're not taking one of these jobs. But the part of that where, first of all, he would reevaluate what he wants from the profession. Does that tell you he's mixed on, do I want to stay in the NBA?

Do I want to get into like TV? Do I want to go back to college where I had all this success? And I think there's two ways to look like on one hand, you'd be crazy to get back into college with all the player movement, the transfer portal and NIL and everything you have to deal with. But then again, you might be thinking if you're Billy Donovan, hey,

I know guys in the NBA, I can hire somebody to be my GM and it'll just be like younger players in the NBA with paying them and now I get to coach him, you know? And it's one thing for him to be. like, well, I'm going to take a year to step away. And then all the side of North Carolina comes off from with a job, you're like, oh, actually I don't need to step away for a year. I'll take that job. Billy Donovan was an excellent college coach. Now, that was a while ago, right? How do you do in the current era? I would think that coaching in the NBA would be okay with

that. And I would think that he would do just fine. He is 60 years old. So, you know, when I was doing my coaching list, I wanted to keep the guys 55 and younger. But Billy Donovan is such an accomplished coach that I might be open to considering that if I was Kansas. Now, Where would he rank in the tier list? That's a good question. Honestly, probably convinced it'd be a tier two for me based on my tears that I had yesterday. But what if he took the North Carolina job? Heck, what if Todd Golden took like the North Carolina job?

And then he's like, hey, I'm going back to Florida. So I do find that name very interesting to kind of see what happens here with all these coaching searches that maybe keep that one in mind as well for one of these jobs. All right. That'll do it for this episode, bonus episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. We're going to have a full episode coming at you tomorrow, starting up with our transfer portal deep dive. So we get going with Deshaun Goody. I think it's Goody.

I should probably look into that before I do the deep dive. So that coming up on tomorrow's episode, make sure subscribe to the show every podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time.