Odd move by North Carolina, which pulled another Bill Belichick with its hire for a new basketball coach, going with former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone, whose most recent touch with the college game dates to 2001.
Malone is a good basketball coach, having led the Nuggets to an NBA championship in 2023, and averaging 47.1 wins per season in the Mile High City during his tenure.
Being a good pro coach doesn’t always translate to being able to do the job in college, as Belichick’s 4-8 first season at UNC in 2025 can attest.
ICYMI
It’s more the case that Carolina couldn’t land any of its top targets – from among Michigan coach Dusty May, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Iowa State’s TJ Otzelberger.
Malone was available because the Nuggets, rather inexplicably, fired him on the eve of the 2025 NBA playoffs, and he was working a gap year at ESPN as an analyst while waiting for his next coaching job offer.
Malone, a Loyola (Md.) alum, was a college assistant at Oakland (1994-1995), Providence (1995-1998) and Manhattan (1999-2001) before landing an assistant job with the New York Knicks.
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Chris Graham
