Multiple media outlets are reporting that UNC-Chapel Hill is expected to hire Michael Malone as its next men’s basketball coach. ESPN was the first to report the news.
Malone most recently coached the Denver Nuggets in the NBA, where he spent ten years. He won a championship there in 2023. Prior to that stint, he was the head coach of the Sacramento Kings for a season and a half. He most recently served as an analyst at ESPN.
Malone has never been a head coach in college. He had short stints as an assistant coach at Oakland University, Providence, and Manhattan before moving to the NBA in 2001.
The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has not yet announced a meeting at which they would approve a contract.
Malone’s daughter plays volleyball at Carolina.
It’s the second time in as many years that North Carolina has hired a prominent coach with experience at the highest levels of professional sports. Bill Belichick was tapped to lead the football program last year, only to see the former Patriots coach struggle to a 4-8 record in his first season in Chapel Hill.
Hubert Davis was fired as head coach last month after a first-round exit from the NCAA Tournament. Davis’s five-year record included a national runner-up finish in his first season, a regular-season ACC Championship, and three trips to the NCAA Tournament.
