Bubba Cunningham says they hope to hire Williams' replacement as quickly as possible

By Lauren Brownlow, WRALSportsFan columnist/reporter

When Bubba Cunningham first heard that Roy Williams was thinking of retiring, he tried to talk him out of it.

Cunningham, who was a member of the NCAA Tournament selection committee and has been in the Indianapolis bubble since the Tournament began, did what he could by phone last week when Williams first told him what he was thinking. Long conversations with Williams on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Williams said what he said at his press conference — he wasn't getting the results, he wasn't the right man for the job — and Cunningham kept trying to convince him that hey, there was a pandemic this year. Nothing was normal. "Let's keep trying," Cunningham says he told Williams. "Let's keep working through this."

"Unfortunately, the more I talked to him, I think the more convinced he was he was going to retire," Cunningham said.

He implored Williams to talk to Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, who was in Chapel Hill. Maybe he'd have better luck. The two met in person on Sunday. Guskiewicz implored Williams to wait 24 hours. But his mind was basically already made up.

"Every once in a while, Coach can be a bit stubborn, and so he was committed," Cunningham said. "and today was the outcome of that decision that he made."

Even though Cunningham knew this would happen, he couldn't do some of the back-channel things athletic directors can do during coaching searches because it had to stay a secret. Williams wanted to tell his staff and his team first, and Cunningham knew if he told even 1-2 of the wrong people, it would get out. He couldn't reach out to potential coaching candidates to gauge their interest.

He called his assistant for a flight home from Indianapolis, but he couldn't even tell his assistant the reason. He didn't even tell his own wife until Wednesday. Williams won't be able to go back to Indianapolis, since he'd need seven days of negative tests.

Now that he's back in Chapel Hill, he is facing one of the biggest hires a Carolina athletic director has had to make since — well, since hiring Roy Williams, frankly.

And he'll have to do that while delicately balancing all of the competing interests that go into hiring a Carolina basketball coach. Carolina hasn't hired a coach that was from outside of the "family", so to speak, since it hired Frank McGuire back in 1953. Even Dean Smith had come from McGuire's staff as an assistant. Then Bill Guthridge, a longtime Smith assistant. Then Matt Doherty, a former player. Then Roy. And now?

Well, now is a different time in college basketball. Williams was always the obvious successor, if he was willing to take the job, basically since Smith decided to retire because everyone knew Guthridge wouldn't coach much longer. There's not as obvious a successor now with Chapel Hill roots.

Cunningham understands the importance of that connection to fans, but he also knows that more important to them is winning.

"I believe we've got the best job in college basketball, and this job doesn't come open very often. We need to spend a great deal of time thinking about who is the right person right now. The often-used word is 'fit'. I think that is part of it, and I think time and circumstance is all part of that as well," Cunningham said. "The history and tradition here is winning. We've had it in the family for a long period of time, and that is important, but it's not the only factor in trying to make a decision like this."

Cunningham won't be hiring an expensive search firm to help him. But that doesn't mean that he and Chancellor Guskiewicz, who will be making the decision, won't have help.

"There's a number of people, a number of Carolina people that are in the basketball business, I have tremendous respect for them. I've certainly talked to many of them already. So understanding the basketball landscape in general, Carolina specifically, and relying on those folks, many of which played here, that's who I will be relying on for information and insight. Then ultimately, the chancellor and I will make that recommendation to the board," Cunningham said.

And the committee of sorts will include Williams himself adding input, plus former Carolina players. Cunningham said he wanted to get a multigenerational group of former players to consult in making the hire, and he's already reached out to Marcus Paige, Luke Maye, Cam Johnson, Phil Ford, Eric Montross, just to name a few.

Cunningham's task is not an enviable one. He admitted himself that he's never made a basketball hire like this before. And while he's been at North Carolina awhile, he didn't go to North Carolina and doesn't have that connection with it that Williams or former AD Dick Baddour did. In a way, that's a good thing. But he knows he has to be careful not to seem as if he's being dismissive of the Carolina connection part of this.

"I've been here almost 10 years and I feel like I really understand Carolina, but I don't have that deep thing that Roy has, and I haven't been here my entire career. So I really want to hear from them and get their thoughts because they have built this program," Cunningham said. "Those players and those students have built this program to what it is along with the coaches, and I value that and I want to do right by them.

"But I also think that I don't want to be myopic. I don't want to be myopic on the head coaching thing. I don't want to be myopic on the Carolina experience part."

He would prefer that a coach have head coaching experience, Cunningham said, and he would also love it if the coach had a Carolina connection. But he can't make the decision based solely on either.

Prior to Williams, the last coach Carolina hired that had head coaching experience was Matt Doherty. That one didn't end well, but it wasn't because Doherty had head coaching experience, of course. Williams, like Smith before him, is intensely loyal to his staff of assistants. Smith famously waited until the fall to retire at least in part because he wanted to insure that his longtime assistant Bill Guthridge got to take over the program, which is what happened.

Williams will certainly advocate for his assistants — at least the ones he thinks are ready for the challenge — but it won't be quite like the Smith scenario, obviously. By all indications, Williams hasn't demanded that any of his assistants (most likely a Hubert Davis or a Steve Robinson) take over.

It definitely seemed like Cunningham was leaning against the idea of hiring an assistant, although he didn't rule it out.

"I'll consider anybody that we think can help us continue to lead this program, be successful, win championships, attract great students that want to be here. I'm wide open to that, but I do have a preference for hiring head coaches, particularly at this level," Cunningham said. "I mean, this is not an easy job, and Xs and Os are part of the job, but there are so many other parts to it that are really important to be a successful program. That's not saying that an assistant coach can't do it, but I want people to be successful, and I want to hire people to and put them in a position to be successful."

Unless Cunningham is able to lure a big name, which he will surely try to do, he's going to be taking a risk. It's unlikely that whatever hire is made will be universally approved of, and obviously, following Roy Williams is an insanely difficult task.

Making it even more challenging? Other schools have already started making coaching hires, and there are over 1,000 college basketball players in the transfer portal already with holes to fill on Carolina's roster. Those can't begin to filled until a coach is hired.

"I want to go as quickly as I can. We didn't let much time elapse between Larry (Fedora) and Mack Brown. We won't let much time elapse here because people in the portal people are transferring," Cunningham said. "It's very important, but it's more important to get it right and to be comfortable with the decision that we make than expediency. But we will go very quickly and and trying to get something done. I'd hate to give you a date and not hit it, but it will be soon."

Some athletic directors say they keep a written wish list of head coaches that they'd pursue if they ever had to fire their head coach or their head coach retired. Cunningham doesn't have a written list per se, but he obviously has people in mind.

"We all know who the best coaches are in college basketball. We know the best coaches in the NBA. ... I mean, it's a pretty narrow set of people," Cunningham said. "When you say you've got the best job in college sports, you know who everyone would have in mind.

"College basketball is better when North Carolina is good and we need to be good and we're committed to being good, and we have to find the right leader that can maintain the standards that we've become accustomed to."