{"id":546199,"date":"2026-03-26T10:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546199\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:15:07","slug":"joel-berry-reacts-to-hubert-davis-firing-i-wasnt-surprised-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546199\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Berry reacts to Hubert Davis firing: ‘I wasn’t surprised at all’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following North Carolina\u2019s<\/a> loss to VCU<\/a> in the 2026 NCAA Tournament, Hubert Davis\u2019<\/a> future came into question. The Tar Heels ultimately made a coaching change Tuesday and announced Davis\u2019 departure, and UNC great Joel Berry<\/a> said he wasn\u2019t surprised by the decision.<\/p>\n

Conversations took place throughout the days following North Carolina\u2019s season-ending loss, which saw the Tar Heels\u2019 19-point lead evaporate in the second half. It marked another early exit for UNC, and the program will now hit the reset button as the search begins to replace Davis after five years at the helm.<\/p>\n

While Berry said he wondered if North Carolina would show \u201cgrace\u201d in light of Caleb Wilson\u2019s<\/a> season-ending injury, he also noted the need for more consistent success in the NIL<\/a> era. He said that might have been a factor in the decision to move on from Davis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised at all,\u201d Berry told SiriusXM College Sports Radio<\/a>. \u201cBy looking at that collapse, you start thinking about, \u2018Well, we\u2019ve seen this story before.\u2019 I kind of thought some grace would be shown. You went 24-7 during the regular season, you\u2019re 18-0 at home and you lose your best player. And you end up having this downfall at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought [they] would show a little grace and then maybe laying out the plan for what things look like moving forward. But ultimately, not surprised because of the world and the era that we\u2019re in right now where patience isn\u2019t something that resonates with a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel Berry: NIL era \u2018common factor\u2019 in Hubert Davis decision<\/p>\n

As roster costs continue to increase in the NIL era, Joel Berry pointed out the importance of donor support. Inside Carolina<\/a> previously reported the North Carolina roster payroll was roughly $14 million<\/a> this past year, which is on the higher end of Power Five spending, according to data from Opendorse<\/a>. Teams in power leagues spent an estimated $7 million to $10 million on average on rosters in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

However, Berry said when schools lose some support from donors, it can be even more challenging to find pieces to put in place. If that\u2019s what North Carolina was hearing, he said that could have been a factor in Hubert Davis\u2019 departure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a coach right now and you get to a point where your donors, your boosters\u00a0\u2013 whatever you want to call them. When they say, \u2018We\u2019re going to handcuff you and not give you money to go out and get what you need,\u2019 you\u2019ve lost,\u201d Berry said. \u201cYou\u2019ve lost. There\u2019s nothing you can do at that point. And that\u2019s where things were headed. When you get to that point and if you\u2019re the AD or the administration, when you hear language like that, there has to be movement because at the end of the day, we all know in this new era, if you don\u2019t have the cash to go get what you need, you can\u2019t win ballgames and you can\u2019t even put yourself in the position to go out and get what you need.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I really think, when you look at all of this and what\u2019s going on, I really do think that was the common factor in why they made this decision. Because the boosters were the one who had the power in this because if you don\u2019t have the money, you can\u2019t get what you need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following North Carolina\u2019s loss to VCU in the 2026 NCAA Tournament, Hubert Davis\u2019 future came into question. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[149956,243645,99],"class_list":["post-546199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-hubert-davis","tag-joel-berry-14-lake-highland-prep","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}