North Carolina and men's basketball coach Hubert Davis have parted ways after five seasons leading the tradition-rich program.

The school announced the decision Tuesday night, saying it had made “a leadership change” to end Davis' tenure as successor to retired Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams. That run featured featured multiple high points, but also wild swings of results, an inconsistency that runs contrary to the Tar Heels' status as a tradition-rich blueblood with a hallmark of sustained top-tier success.

The program with six NCAA titles and a national-record 21 Final Fours now has just three March Madness wins in the four seasons since an unexpected run to the 2022 national title game in Davis' debut season. The Tar Heels reached the Sweet 16 as a No. 1 seed in 2024 before being upset by Alabama, but otherwise haven't reached the round of 32 in that span, and even missed the NCAAs entirely in 2023.

The final blow was Thursday's overtime loss to VCU in the NCAA Tournament in which the Rams rallied from 19 down for the biggest comeback in first-round history, changing the tenor of conversations about Davis' future. And by Saturday, athletic director Bubba Cunningham said the school was evaluating “all facets” of the program.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Purdue was struggling to put away Miami in the second half of their second-round NCAA Tournament game on Sunday when Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kauffman-Renn combined to score the Boilermakers' next 22 points, helping them to turn a three-point lead into a 79-69 victory and a spot in the Sweet 16.

It was exactly what coach Matt Painter has come to expect from his guys over the last four years.

The antithesis of college basketball in the age of free transfers and name, image and likeness money, the Boilermakers are two wins away from a second Final Four appearance in the last three years by keeping things decidedly old-school: They recruit players that fit their program, develop them over time, and then they lean on them when it matters the most.

“It comes down to culture,” Smith said. “Having what we have here in the last four years is really special. I think we've had maybe four transfers in my four years that we have had, and I think that’s pretty special, and not a lot of teams ever have that.”

It’s unique in college basketball, to be sure, but not necessarily unique in the Sweet 16.

In fact, the NCAA Tournament this year has underscored the value of continuity within a program, and that simply restocking with a new wave of transfers each offseason is not necessarily the best way to build a championship roster.

Five teams still alive have at least four starters who have played multiple seasons for their current coaches, according to a roster survey from The Associated Press, and nine of the 16 have at least three. Duke and Michigan State have starting lineups that consist entirely of guys who have played nowhere else in college, and 11 of the 16 teams have at least three such starters.

Those numbers exist despite the fact that Iowa (Ben McCollum) and Texas (Sean Miller) have new coaches, and both were forced to mine the transfer portal after the typical and unavoidable outflow of players from the previous regime.

At Purdue, Smith — now the NCAA career assists leader — and Loyer have been starters the last four years. Kaufman-Renn, also a senior, has been in the starting lineup the last three. Together, they are tied for the winningest class in school history.

“Who wouldn’t want to stay?” Smith asked. “Obviously if our situation was different, whatever. For us just being around a great group of people as a whole, the community at Purdue, the coaching staff, just staff in general — it just makes it super special.”

In the case of the Hawkeyes, four of the starters — Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks, Cam Manyawu and Kael Combs — followed McCollum from Drake, creating the same sort of continuity. The other starter, Jacob Koch, played for Fran McCaffery at Iowa last season.

“We've got really loyal kids, and I knew that going in,” said McCollum, who two years ago was coaching Division II ball. “Whether or not they’re perfect — they’re not. We’ve got our issues, I’ve got my issues, but what they’re perfect at is loyalty, and they’re tough, and they’ve established a foundation and a solid core.”

The Hawkeyes' in-state rival, Iowa State, is back in the Sweet 16 behind Tamin Lipsey, a fourth-year senior who grew up near its campus in Ames. Milan Momcilovic and injured forward Joshua Jefferson have been with T.J. Otzelberger for multiple years.

Over time, they have embraced what it means to be a part of the Cyclones program.

“We have a lot of pride that this program continues to do really well,” Otzelberger said, “and the consistency of it means a whole lot to us. We're going to continue to have those work habits that reflect that day-in and day-out.”

Spartans coach Tom Izzo doesn't just have five starters that he recruited out of high school but four who have stuck with him at least three seasons. That includes Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler, a pair of college basketball unicorns: fourth-year seniors.

“When you end up coaching and you have guys for three and four years, they do become like your own kids,” Izzo said. “In fact, I spent more time with some of my players than I did my own kids as they were growing up. I'm not really proud of that, just the fact of life.”

Yet it's a somewhat pleasant way of life for those who remember what college sports was before administrators began chasing money above all else, and players followed suit. Teams were embraced by fans when March Madness rolled around because they had watched their players grow up; they had a vested interested after years of shared joy and suffering.

In some ways, this year's Sweet 16 is a throwback to an increasingly bygone era.

“I kind of go back to just how we are right now, even in like, our meals in the hotel rooms, and just hanging out with the guys. I think that’s something that we’re all going to take for granted at some point,” Cooper said. “When we graduate, wherever the next step takes us, we’re going to think back and wish that we were back there, being able to hang out with the guys.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It was a wild celebration and a moment of March bliss for Clemson, which had not enjoyed many of those the past two decades.

Mia Moore's running 3-pointer seemingly went through in time to lift the Tigers to a buzzer-beating win over Southern California in the first round of the women's NCAA Tournament on Saturday.

Until officials cleared the floor to look at replays and determined that the clock hadn't started when it should have when Moore took an inbound pass and dashed up the court. The referees took away the basket and the score remained 61-all. Clemson would have to play five more minutes if it hoped to advance, and the Tigers fell 71-67 in overtime to USC.

“Initially, I thought it was good, but I guess I came up short,” Moore said.

During their review, officials took a stopwatch to the video and found that Moore's shot and a potential foul that could have sent her to the free-throw line came after the 4.4 seconds that Clemson had to work with when it inbounded the ball.

Clemson coach Shawn Poppie thought his team had a signature March Madness win. At worst, he thought Moore would head to the foul line with almost no time left on the clock.

Instead, the ruling gave new life to USC, and Clemson, which had reached the NCAA Tournament just once since 2002 before this year, had to reset.

“Everything in their mind is, ‘We have just won the first-round game,’” said Poppie, in his second year leading the Tigers. “So for them to have an emotional, again, you just have a quick timeout to motivate them and for whatever reason, we have to go back out there.”

Clemson took a 64-61 lead halfway through the extra period on Moore's foul shot and a basket by Rachael Rose. From there, USC star freshman Jazzy Davidson took over and lifted the Trojans into the second round.

Davidson hit two of her four 3-pointers in overtime, the first to tie the game and the second to put the Trojans ahead to stay at 67-64 with 1:03 left.

“I told her you don't ever have to get me a gift because those shots in overtime were enough,” Davidson's teammate Kara Dunn said with a smile.

Davidson finished with 31 points and Dunn had 22, the pair combining for more than 70% of USC's scoring.

USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said her video manager thought Moore's shot came too late. Still, she was trying to plan for free throws by Clemson and how to respond to a potential deficit.

“Obviously, from my end, the officials did a great job going to monitor and they counted down the time from 4.4 seconds. She didn't get it off in time,” Gottlieb said. “If that's accurate, then that's what it is.”

For Poppie, it will be some time before he can stop thinking about his team's short taste of triumph.

“It was a tough, tough day for (the) Tigers,” Poppie said. “Sad locker room in there, but nothing to hang your head on.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

There is still madness in March. There are buzzer beaters. Upsets. Postgame tears. “Wait, what?” moments that go viral and become part of NCAA Tournament lore.

The chaos that makes the tournament such a captivating three-week spectacle is just getting a little harder to come by these days. And that might not be changing any time soon.

For every High Point and VCU — which shredded perfect brackets by the millions while pulling first-round stunners over power-conference schools — there is an ever-increasing helping of chalk as favorites crush the dreams of potential Cinderellas before they even catch a glimpse of a glass slipper.

The top four seeds in each region went 16-0 across an opening two days that were only occasionally compelling and competitive, just as the top four seeds did a year ago. The average margin of victory in the first round was 17.4 points, the highest ever since the tournament expanded to 64 (and then 68) teams. Fourteen games were decided by at least 20 points, a record, and Florida won by 59 — the second-biggest margin in tournament history.

And while there is increasing parity in women's basketball at the top, higher-seeded teams also had little trouble during first-round contests.

Transfers and NIL increase the gap between haves and have-nots

It's not a coincidence that this run of dominance has come nearly in lockstep with the easing of transfer rules and the ability of athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness.

Saint Louis was one of the rare lower-seeded teams to make it to the round of 32 when the ninth-seeded Billikens raced by eighth-seeded Georgia on Thursday. Less than 48 hours later, they were run off the floor by top-seeded Michigan.

Wolverines forward Yaxel Landenberg, so coveted in the transfer portal that he told the AP he was up to $9 million by Kentucky before choosing Michigan, had 25 points and six rebounds in the win.

“I think the talent gap at the top is more significant than it was,” Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz said. “I think NIL has created that, where just the size and physicality, the differences between the top five or 10 teams and everybody else ... I do think there’s a chasm.”

That chasm may be difficult to navigate in the short term, and maybe the long term, as major college athletics endures a Wild West phase following the House settlement that allowed schools to pay athletes directly.

The math is easy: The bigger the school, the bigger the budget. The bigger the budget, the easier it is to attract top talent, including raiding the rosters of schools lower on the food chain.

“These teams that don’t have the resources, it’s just hard to keep anyone longer than one year,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “If you’re great, it’s like, you’re in a catch-22. If you play great, you’re gone because there’s people with more resources.”

Players shine at small schools, and then leave

Alabama coach Nate Oats became one of the hottest commodities in the late 2010s while at Buffalo, leading the Bulls to 32 wins in 2018-19 behind guard C.J. Massinburg. Back then, players who transferred had to sit out a year before being eligible at their new schools.

That rule is no more, leaving Oats to wonder if he'd have been able to hold on to Massinburg for four seasons in the current climate. Rare in 2026 is the player who sticks and stays from signing day to graduation day.

“I’m sure he would’ve loved to stay and play for me, but it’s going to be hard for him to turn down the amount of money he would have been offered,” Oats said.

The trickle-up effect is real. There was a time not so long ago when the blue bloods recruited the best high school players and threw them into the fray right away, while the lower-tier teams that became tournament darlings grew together over time.

Not so much anymore.

“The big, high-major schools are no longer throwing freshmen and sophomores, highly-rated, talented players out there against the low to mid-majors with the fifth-year seniors,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said.

That's in part because so many seniors now find themselves in the big leagues after playing their way up the ladder.

“(Schools are) going out and purchasing a ready-made roster of grizzled, talented veterans,” Hurley said. “So the art of program-building in colleges is over.”

Mid-majors complain the power schools won't play them

Mid-major schools are also struggling to put together a schedule that prepares them for the step up in competition that awaits in March.

It can sometimes lead to ugly mismatches like the ones peppered across this year's opening round.

High Point wasn't one of those teams. The Big South champion Panthers more than held their own in fending off fifth-seeded Wisconsin on Thursday, continuing a long tradition of 12th-seeded bracket busters.

Still, Panthers coach Flynn Clayman said would like to see things “tweaked” so power-conference programs are incentivized to hit the road or play on a neutral court every once in a while against strong mid-majors.

“Fans deserve to see High Point versus a good team in the nonconference,” Clayman said. “You can run down the list. Look at Santa Clara (against Kentucky), what a game that is. They deserve to get games."

Purdue's Matt Painter understands the frustration but isn't sure those games will happen with any regularity. The Boilermakers played three mid-majors this season, all at home. Any true road or neutral-site nonconference games will likely be saved for other power-conference programs as schools try to boost their NCAA Tournament resumes.

And that could make the brackets even chalkier as the years go on.

Still, all it takes is one thunderclap moment by an underdog for the chalk to be washed away.

That remains the ultimate lure of March. For now.

“I think there was some teams that ducked us this year,” High Point forward Cam'Ron Fletcher said. “But, I mean, like coach Flynn say, we’re here now, so ... there’s no ducking anymore.”

In the tournament, for better or worse, there never is.

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AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston, John Wawrow, Dave Skretta, Doug Feinberg and Brett Martel contributed to this report.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness