Can UNC basketball maintain commitment to ‘Carolina Way’ amid college hoops changes?

Few if any aspects of major college athletics remain untouched by their increasing transactionalism, and that’s especially true in college basketball.

Throughout the sport, rosters turn over season after season, resulting in almost entirely new teams every year. The transfer portal and NIL have combined to create a system of unrestrained and unmitigated free agency.

Rumors abound about the cost of this player or that, both out of high school and through the portal. Vague reports persist about seven-figure deals for the best of the best prospects; nearly 80 percent of major conference coaches told CBS Sports in a report published in August that they’ve been asked to pay more than $1 million for a player.

One coach said he’d been asked for as much as $5 million, according to the same report.

College basketball has always been a sport defined in some ways by its shady fringes; a sport defined by many Hall of Fame coaches and their legacies, yes, but also by so-called bag men, and the question of how much a given program might be willing to spend under the table on talent acquisition. It’s just that the money is a lot more over-the-table than it was, and more transparent.

That shifting dynamic is testing the identity of some programs, North Carolina’s included. For decades, since even before Dean Smith’s first national championship in 1982, the UNC men’s basketball program has held itself to a higher ideal, one more commonly known as The Carolina Way. It’s built on a commitment to team, each other, family and sacrifice, among other principles.

In other words: It’s built on a lot of things that are the antithesis of this era of college basketball.

The question facing Hubert Davis, now approaching his fourth season as the Tar Heels’ head coach, is one of adaptation. Davis played at UNC under Smith in the late 1980s and early 90s. He spent about a decade as an assistant coach under Roy Williams. Coaches changed, players changed and the sport changed, a lot, during those years.

The underlying identity and principles of Carolina basketball never did, though, and by design. Must it change now, in a time defined by influences and realities Smith never had to contend with decades ago? Davis doesn’t seem to think so. Asked Thursday how UNC maintains its basketball identity in this time of change, Davis provided a simple answer.

“You maintain it because that’s not changing,” he said at the ACC’s annual preseason basketball media event. “It just is what it is: Carolina’s Carolina. I’ve gone through it. I believe it. It’s proven that it works. And as long as I’m head coach, that will never change.”

In the same breath, a moment later, Davis acknowledged the “other factors” that have become significant determinants of success throughout college athletics — namely “the transfer portal, NIL, the involvement of agents.”

“That being said,” he said again, “Carolina is Carolina.

“The foundation of this piece of this place will never change.”

NIL and this free-wheeling version of the transfer portal are still relatively new. Their combined effect hasn’t yet re-shaped college athletics the way they might after another five years, or 10. Over the past three seasons, though, UNC has fought to maintain its place among college basketball’s elite.

After an uneven regular season during Davis’ first year as head coach, UNC rallied late and spoiled Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game at Duke before a memorable run to the Final Four. There, the Tar Heels ended Krzyzewski’s career in an epic national semifinals victory, but surrendered a 15-point lead against Kansas in the national championship game.

UNC disappointed in Davis’ second season, and became the first team in modern college basketball history to miss the NCAA Tournament after starting the season ranked No. 1. Last season, the Tar Heels bounced back, won the ACC’s regular season championship, earned a top seed in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Sweet 16.

Davis and his program have had to scrap and fight, though, in a way that’s characteristic of many college basketball programs these days but not so characteristic of UNC and its historical standard. The roster turnover, as it is everywhere, has been constant. Players have transferred out. Others have transferred in. The building and rebuilding continues. It’s becoming normal now, but it’s far different from how UNC built its program.

The Tar Heels entered the off-season with a noticeable void in their front court after the departure of Armando Bacot, who came to epitomize a kind of best-of-both-worlds case study: Bacot not only remained at UNC for five seasons, but also capitalized on seemingly endless commercial opportunities, too, and said during a podcast interview last summer that he made millions.

Bacot’s departure created what appeared to be an attractive opening for a would-be incoming transfer. It came with a self-made pitch: Come to UNC. Anchor the Tar Heels down low, on both ends of the floor. Take advantage of any number of off-court opportunities to make some money. A win-win, or so anyone would’ve thought.

Instead, though, Davis and his staff struck out on nearly all of their most prominent transfer targets, among big men. Cliff Omoruyi, from Rutgers, chose instead to transfer to Alabama. Jonas Aidoo, from Tennessee, chose Arkansas. Ugonna Onyenso, from Kentucky, chose Kansas State. The financial considerations for each are unknown, and Davis last week during a press conference in Chapel Hill deflected a question about how much NIL factored into those players’ decisions.

Even so, a narrative and perception has taken hold that UNC handles those conversations and deliberations in a different way than other schools might. Without explicitly explaining the success or failure of any given recruitment, Davis hinted on Wednesday at some of what’s at play when he recruits a prospect.

“You have to be elite — on the court, off the court, in the classroom,” he said. “You have to serve out in the community. You have to unpack your bags and both feet have to be in for this university and this community and this program. You have to want to be a part of a team. You have to think about the team’s success, not just your success.

“And this is not a transactional program — it just is not.”

It’s that last sentence that’s especially noteworthy: “This is not a transactional program.” Just about everything about college athletics is more transactional than it used to be, and yet Davis aspires for his program to be an exception. It’s admirable, in a way. And to understand Davis’ stance is to understand the reality that few people anywhere embrace the historical standard and values of UNC basketball as much as as he does.

He arrived here on Thursday for his media obligations with a small button on the lapel of his sportcoat with the initials “DES” — an homage to his college head coach. Dean Smith remains a part of him, in a figurative way, and in a literal way Davis regularly wears a reminder of the man he grew up dreaming of playing for; the man whose legacy Davis always wants to honor.

If anything, though, college basketball has only become more cutthroat since Smith’s coaching days. Some of Davis’ competitors are undoubtedly not above building a recruiting strategy around the mission of out-bidding other schools for talent. Others might find Davis’ commitment to a historic ideal to be outdated, at best, or naive, at worst.

The game has changed, after all. Yet at UNC, Davis is determined to keep alive the ways of the old.

The constant churn of the transfer portal is proof enough that loyalty is not what it was — or maybe never was, given athletes didn’t have this freedom of movement until recently. The pursuit of NIL dollars, an overdue right, has turned college players into paid professionals. And when you’re a paid professional, there are business decisions to be made.

A lot of that is in contrast to what Davis yearns to keep going at UNC.

“There has to be a commitment to wanting to be here at Carolina,” he said. “To be a part of this team, a part of this program, a part of this university; and a commitment to be the best that you could be in those three areas that have always been a part of this program.

“And so as long as recruits, whether it’s from high school or from the transfer portal, have a deep desire and a passion to be a part of this place alongside everything else that’s a part of college basketball, I’m fine.

“But just to come here just because of that, apart from diving yourself into this program and what this place is about, it’s just something that just won’t happen.”

And so UNC lost out on some coveted big man prospects, and will enter the season with questions in the front court. Davis has a roster of players he believes want to be there; the kind, as he described it, with a commitment to those ideals. The question is how many of those players will continue to matriculate into college — the ones who care more about a program than a payday, or at least care as much.