It's been a very rocky season for Hubert Davis and the North Carolina Tar Heels, from a 4-4 start that featured a humbling home loss to Alabama to a five losses in seven games stretch during conference play that put the team's NCAA Tournament hopes — and Davis' job security — very much in peril. But as he's done seemingly every February, Davis has figured it out of late: UNC's ho-hum win over Florida State on Monday night was the team's fourth in a row, a run that's improved their record to 18-11 overall and 11-6 in the ACC while landing them right back squarely on the bubble.
After spending much of the past couple of months calling for his job, Tar Heel fans have turned the heat down at least a little bit on one of their native sons. Which is for the best, because it seems like he's not going anywhere soon anyway: According to a report from Brendan Marks of The Athletic, Davis and UNC actually agreed to a contract extension last July that will keep the coach tied to his alma mater through the 2029-2030 season.
Hubert Davis contract details
On the heels of a dream Final Four run in his first season on the job, Davis signed a six-year, $16.7 million contract extension that would carry him through the 2027-28 campaign. That was the contract we thought that Davis was still operating under. But as it turns out, AD Bubba Cunningham was moving behind the scenes to change that, cooking up another extension that adds two more years on to the original deal while bumping Davis' base salary from $400,000 to $1.25 million annually. The two sides agreed to terms last summer, but didn't actually sign the contract until Dec. 4 — the same day as the embarrassment against Alabama.
Which should underscore just how big a gamble this is, despite UNC's recent improvement on the court. Davis continues to recruit well, and he's gotten into the habit of having his teams peak at the right time. But the Heels have been awfully volatile under his watch, not coming close to the consistent excellence that should be the standard in a place like Chapel Hill. The good news for Carolina fans is that Davis' new contract won't actually make it all that difficult for the school to move on when (or if) it decides it's time.
What is Hubert Davis's buyout at UNC?
Per Marks, Davis' new buyout is his base salary (that $1.25 million mark) multiplied by however many years he has remaining on his contract. So, just hypothetically, if UNC decided it wanted to let Davis go at the conclusion of this season, it would pay a buyout of $1.25 million times five years — or $6.25 million, not nothing but hardly an exorbitant amount as far as buyouts go.
Of course, we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit here. There's still a lot of season left, with plenty of chances for the Heels to play themselves into the Big Dance and go on another deep run. If that fails to materialize, however, Davis will enter the 2025-26 campaign facing a lot of heat that this new deal won't be able to shield him from.