The mission to continue Roy Williams’ legendary legacy at North Carolina has come to an abrupt end. The Tar Heels have now terminated their head coach, Hubert Davis, days after a first-round exit at the March Madness. Now, veteran sportscaster Stephen A. Smith has doubled down on this entire situation with a bold take.

Speaking at the First Take show, Smith shared that the consistent performances of Jon Scheyer, the coach of Davis’s rival team, prompted the Tar Heels’ front office to make this decision. Being arch-rivals, Davis was also assigned the same job as Scheyer, but failed decisively.

“Here’s the way that I’m going to put it for you, the person that fired Hubert Davis is Jon Scheyer at Duke,” Smith said. “Jon Scheyer got him fired because this man is doing such an outstanding job at Duke. Something had to be done. You were getting left behind.”

Over the past few decades, UNC and Duke have been two sides of the same coin. Under Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams, Duke and the Tar Heels became two of the most fierce powerhouses in the ACC conference, winning National Championships with ease. The situation changed only after Krzyzewski and Williams handed over the program’s reins to Scheyer and Davis.

With Scheyer, the Blue Devils maintained consistency, often performing at a high level at the ACC tournament and making deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. On the other hand, Davis hasn’t been able to keep up the same pace that his predecessor, Williams, maintained to dictate the program. It’s quite evident in this season’s numbers as well.

The Blue Devils were in the conversation for a No. 1 seed heading into March Madness. On the other hand, the Tar Heels were given No. 6, which quietly reflects the stark quality gap between these two teams. Smith builds upon this sentiment further in his assessment, stating that Duke and UNC will always have to be in proximity to each other as this is the level that they will have to maintain, given their decorated rivalry over the years.

“You can’t have Duke as the number one team in the nation, and North Carolina hovering around 17 or 20,” he said. “North Carolina gets bounced out in the first round, and Duke is going to the Sweet 16s and Final Fours, that cannot happen. And it was supposed to be a precipitous drop off once Mike Krzyzewski left.”

With a first-round upset by the VCU Rams, it was quite certain that a hard decision might be incoming for Davis in the coming days. Following that game, Smith cited the quality of recruiting classes as one of the major reasons for the Tar Heels’ disappointing performance over these seasons. And following Davis’ firing, Smith reiterated the same stance.

“The fact that Jon Scheyer has come in at Duke and here you’re waiting for the national championship, but everything else he’s done, you talk about 27 wins, 27 wins, 32 wins, 33 wins. The man is an exceptional coach, and he’s had the top recruiting class in four of his five years at Duke. You can’t have that going on eight miles up the road, and then in Chapel Hill, you’re struggling.”

In the current bracket, after North Carolina is set to hire a new coach following the firing of Hubert Davis, Duke will play in the Round of 64 on March 16. Meanwhile, a recent claim perfectly showcases the type of stint Davis was going through with UNC over all these years.

ACC coach makes bizarre claim regarding Hubert Davis’ time at the helm of the Tar Heels

Under Davis, the Tar Heels’ performance didn’t see any fruition. The team reached the March Madness runner-up spot back in 2022, during Davis’s first year at the helm, and won a regular-season title in 2024. But as a matter of fact, UNC didn’t develop much personality on the court, and with frequent losses to arch-rivals such as Duke and formidable ACC contenders, Clemson, the fear that the Tar Heels once had seemed to diminish.

Amid this, Davis’s fellow coach in the conference revealed that, until Davis was the head coach of UNC, no team considered them a potential threat to their season. The anonymous coach had said to the analyst, Jeff Goodman.

“I had really hoped he was the coach forever. No one in the ACC was scared of him,” the coach had said to Goodman. “I’m worried that they hire someone really good now because if you get a big-time guy at UNC, they could be right there with Duke again.”

With Hubert Davis gone, UNC has great potential to bring in a high-profile name to the helm of the program. According to the latest reports, Dusty May, Billy Denovon, and Nate Oats are among the top names the program is currently eyeing. There has been no official confirmation yet from the UNC front office. But they are already short of time, with the upcoming transfer portal set to open next month.

Thus, the Tar Heels will have to make a decision quickly to develop a plan for navigating the rebuilding phase without Hubert Davis. What do you think of the Tar Heels’ decision regarding Davis? Do let us know in the comments.