The fiercest rival of the Duke basketball program officially has a new head coach.
Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke basketball program now know the coach they will be battling against at least twice per season when facing North Carolina.
The Tar Heels officially named Hubert Davis as their next men’s basketball coach after making the announcement on Monday afternoon and holding a press conference on Tuesday.
Davis will be replacing Roy Williams, who stunningly announced his retirement on April 1.
The 50-year-old coach was reportedly the choice of Williams to replace him, but the school went through an interview process led by Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham.
Hubert Davis played college basketball at North Carolina under the legendary Dean Smith and after his lengthy NBA career returned to Chapel Hill to be an assistant coach under Roy Williams.
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Davis was one of the lead recruiters for the Tar Heels since returning to campus in 2012, but he has no prior head coaching experience as he gets set to take over one of the most prestigious programs in college basketball history.
As a player, Davis was named to the All-ACC Second Team in 1992 and was 6-5 in his career against Duke.
Hubert Davis also helped guide the Tar Heels to a National Championship in 2017 alongside Williams.
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There’s no debate that the recruiting battle has been dominated by the Blue Devils on Tobacco Road, but one of the prospects who was a Duke lean and ended up in Chapel Hill was five-star target Walker Kessler.
Kessler announced his intention to enter the transfer portal weeks before Williams announced his retirement, as the changing landscape of college basketball aided in the Hall of Famer’s exit from the game.
The freshman’s exit from Chapel Hill seemed to be a perfect example of why Roy Willams was stepping away from college basketball.
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However, Davis made it very clear that he is going to work on getting Kessler to return to the Tar Heels for his sophomore season, although many are predicting the Gonzaga Bulldogs to be the favorite to land one of the most coveted transfers in the portal.
Nonetheless, Duke knows who it will be battling for supremacy on Tobacco Road for years to come, and it’ll be interesting, and strange, to watch the coaching battles between Mike Krzyzewski and Hubert Davis.