CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — New North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis is intent on building out his assistant coaching staff with members of the Carolina family. To that end, Davis is aiming to add former teammate and current Monmouth head coach King Rice to his bench, multiple sources confirm.
Rice, who played three seasons with Davis at UNC from 1988-91, has spent the past 10 seasons as the head coach at Monmouth, directing the Hawks to a 161-154 record with three first place finishes in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. His two best seasons came in 2015-16 and 2016-17, leading Monmouth to back-to-back NIT appearances to cap 28-8 and 27-7 seasons.
After Roy Williams retired last Thursday, Rice was among those interviewed by UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham for the head coach position, according to sources close to the situation.
Davis is also expected to add former Auburn and East Carolina head coach Jeff Lebo, who also played alongside the new Tar Heel head coach under Dean Smith, as well as Sean May, who spent six years on Roy Williams’s coaching staff, including the past four as UNC’s director of basketball operations.
At his introductory press conference on Tuesday, Davis detailed why his coaching staff would have to be entirely made up of members of the Carolina family.
“In terms of the staff, you can’t do this job unless you’re a Carolina guy. It’s impossible,” the 50-year-old said. “You can’t coach here, you can’t recruit here, you can’t work here unless you have been here, you’ve experienced it, you have lived it. And so in terms of the staff, it’s all guys that have experienced this place and believe it and have the passion and the desire that all of us have for this university and this program and these kids in this community.
“One of the things that I desperately want to do in terms of a staff is I want to connect the generations. I want to have guys on staff that played for Coach Smith, I want to have guys on staff that played for Coach Guthridge, and I want to have guys on staff that played with Coach Williams. I want to be able to connect all those because I think bringing all those coaches together is what makes Carolina, Carolina. And so in assembling a staff, that is the No. 1 thing that I’m thinking about. You’ve got to be a Carolina guy. And I want an example from every one of the coaches that have meant so much to me, but has also meant so much to this program.”
Rice played in 140 games as a Tar Heel from 1987-91, helping lead the Tar Heels to the Final Four in 1991. His 629 assists rank sixth all-time in program history.
After his Monmouth team played UNC at the Smith Center in 2016, Rice fought back tears in his postgame press conference, explaining how much the Carolina program means to him.
“I am the luckiest guy that in 1987 Coach Smith gave me a scholarship, and it was made me have a great, great, great life,” Rice said. “… I am the luckiest man that I got the chance to play at North Carolina.
“The relationships I have, I had Jimmy Black sitting with me. J.R. Reid and Coach Ford and many, many more that came today because I as here with my team. And I am thankful to all the coaches — Coach Ford, Coach Wiel, Coach Harp, Coach Gut (Guthridge). All of them helped me. They took a hard-headed kid and turned him into a man.
“I am a proud, proud, proud Carolina man.”
Lebo, who played one season with Davis at UNC in 1988-89, has 20 years of head coaching experience. He first head coaching job came in 1998-99 at Tennessee Tech, where he turned the Golden Eagles’s program around in four years (75-43 record). After two years at Chattanooga (40-20), the 54-year-old jumped to the SEC to coach Auburn from 2004-10 (96-93) before spending eight years at East Carolina (116-122).
Lebo coached his past season at West Carteret High School in Morehead City, N.C. after spending the 2019-20 season as an assistant coach under former Tar Heel teammate Joe Wolf with the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA’s Developmental G League. Lebo’s son, Creighton, was a freshman walk-on on the UNC team last season.
May’s duties as UNC’s director of basketball operations the past four seasons included scouting, on-campus recruiting, video services and team logistics, among others. A first round draft pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, May is one of seven Tar Heels to average a double-double for his career (15.8 ppg, 10.0 rpg). He won the Final Four Most Outstanding Player award after leading the Tar Heels to the 2005 national championship.
