Prior to the 2012–13 season, UNC head coach
Roy Williams hired Davis as an assistant. Davis also served as head coach of
UNC's junior varsity basketball team, one of the only junior varsity teams remaining in college basketball. UNC's junior varsity program is a long-standing program tradition, and several former JV players have gone on to be walk-ons for the varsity team. Davis was on the bench for the Tar Heels
2017 NCAA Men's Basketball tournament run that concluded with a 71–65 win over Gonzaga in the
National Championship game. Following the retirement of Williams, Davis was named the 19th head coach in program history, and became the first
African-American to lead the program. The move was initially met with some criticism, as Davis had never been a head coach at any level. Despite this, Williams had been grooming him for a head coaching job much in the same way that
Dean Smith had mentored Williams during Williams' time as a Tar Heel assistant coach from 1978 to 1988. Davis recorded his first career win in his first game as head coach. The Tar Heels beat
Loyola (MD) 83–67 at home in the
Dean Smith Center to open the season. On February 21, 2022, Davis's Tar Heels defeated
Louisville to give the first-year head coach his 20th victory of the year. Davis became the fourth ACC head coach to win twenty games in his debut season in the past twenty-five years with the victory. Previous Tar Heel coaches
Matt Doherty (
2000–01), and
Bill Guthridge (
1997–98) are two of the other three coaches to reach the twenty-win mark in their debut seasons, winning 26 and 34 games respectively. Davis's Tar Heels capped off a 23–8 regular season with a 94–81 victory over Duke in
Mike Krzyzewski's final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Davis's Tar Heels went 1–1 in his first
ACC tournament as head coach, and earned an Eastern regional 8th seed in the 2022
NCAA tournament. After cruising to a 95–63 win over 9-seed
Marquette in the first round, the Tar Heels upset the East's number one seed and reigning national champions, the
Baylor Bears, in the second round. The Tar Heels hung on and won the game 93–86 in overtime after losing a 25-point second-half lead. The victory secured Davis's first
sweet sixteen berth as head coach and the school's 30th overall, the most by any program in Division I history. After a 73–66 victory over 4th seed UCLA Bruins in the Sweet Sixteen, Davis and his Tar Heels advanced to the Elite Eight where they defeated the
St. Peter's Peacocks 69–49 to earn a trip to the Final Four. In the national semifinal game, the Tar Heels matched up against arch rivals Duke for the first time in NCAA tournament history. The Tar Heels defeated the Blue Devils 81–77 in what was
Coach K's final game. However, in the national championship game, Davis' Tar Heels were defeated by the
Kansas Jayhawks, 72–69. Due to the Tar Heels' success in his first year as head coach, Davis became one of the few college basketball figures to have gone to a Final Four as a player (1991), an assistant coach (2016 and 2017), and as a head coach (2022). After leading the Tar Heels to a 17-3 conference record and winning the ACC regular season championship, Davis was named the 2024 ACC Coach of the Year. UNC fired Davis at the end of the 2026 season, following a loss in the first round of the
2026 NCAA Tournament. == Personal life ==