{"id":698134,"date":"2026-04-04T17:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698134\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T17:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:25:16","slug":"north-carolina-coaching-search-jon-rothstein-reveals-billy-donovans-status-next-tier-of-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698134\/","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina coaching search: Jon Rothstein reveals Billy Donovan’s status, next tier of candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, head coach Tommy Lloyd<\/a> announced he\u2019d agreed to a contract extension with Arizona<\/a>, ending any speculation of his connection to North Carolina<\/a>\u2018s opening. During an appearance on the CBS Sports Network, college basketball insider Jon Rothstein revealed who UNC will target next with Lloyd out of the picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving down its list is going to include the guy that Tommy Lloyd is coaching against on Saturday: Michigan<\/a> head coach Dusty May<\/a>,\u201d Rothstein said<\/a>. \u201cI have talked to Warde Manuel three times in the last week, Michigan\u2019s athletic director, he has said every single time, \u2018We are going to do everything we have to do to retain Dusty May as head coach.\u2019 And, talking to a lot of people close to Dusty May, he\u2019s not really that interested in going to a fish bowl like North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, we look at Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan<\/a>. I have been told that Billy Donovan will not entertain a conversation with North Carolina until after the Chicago Bulls\u2019 season is over on April 12, out of respect for the Chicago Bulls. With that said, Billy Donovan is not going to be ready to get on a Zoom necessarily on April 13 at 9 a.m. He\u2019s going to process the Bulls\u2019 season and could also entertain other NBA head coaching opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lloyd, May and Donovan have been the three names repeatedly tied to UNC\u2019s opening at head coach. However, Rothstein believes UNC has other coaches it\u2019ll reach out to if it\u2019s unable to land one of its initial three candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would expect names like Texas Tech<\/a>\u2018s Grant McCasland<\/a>, Vanderbilt<\/a>\u2018s Mark Byington<\/a>, and also Iowa<\/a>\u2018s Ben McCollum<\/a> to be on that list,\u201d Rothstein said. \u201cMcCollum is in the first year of his contract and the AD at Iowa has told me that they plan to sign him to a contract extension. He has publicly said that he would like to be the head coach at Iowa for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark Byington and Grant McCasland both have buyouts [worth] $10 million or more. So, it\u2019s going to be a very steep price tag.\u201d<\/p>\n

North Carolina already owes fired head coach Hubert Davis<\/a> a $5.3 million buyout. Davis was the Tar Heels\u2019 head coach for five seasons, leading the program to a 125-54 overall record and a 68-30 mark in conference play.<\/p>\n

Under Davis, UNC won one regular-season ACC title, made four NCAA Tournament appearances and reached the national championship once. North Carolina finished as national runner-up after falling to Kansas<\/a>. The Tar Heels suffered a first-round NCAA Tournament loss this season against VCU<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, head coach Tommy Lloyd announced he\u2019d agreed to a contract extension with Arizona, ending any speculation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,16392,920,919,329,3824,9854,87765,38257,6,22055],"class_list":{"0":"post-698134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ben-mccollum","10":"tag-bulls","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-bulls","13":"tag-chicagobulls","14":"tag-dusty-may","15":"tag-grant-mccasland-95-irving","16":"tag-mark-byington","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-tommy-lloyd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116347609884572869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}