North Carolina athletic director Dick Baddour is expected to decide Tuesday if Matt Doherty will be the coach of the Tar Heels for next season and beyond.

Sources have told ESPN.com that Baddour wants to have a decision on Doherty's fate before the Final Four. Badduor has been meeting for the past week with players and their parents about their relationship with Doherty, who just completed his third year as Tar Heels coach.

The university has called a news conference for 8 p.m. ET to discuss Doherty's future.

At issue for the school is whether Doherty is the right coach for the program for the foreseeable future, not just next season. Baddour has to decide if speculation about Doherty's job status and potential player unrest would undermine Doherty's future at the school.

Doherty was The Associated Press national coach of the year in his first season after leading the Tar Heels to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But the team slumped badly last season after sophomore Joseph Forte entered the NBA draft and Doherty was unable to prod football/basketball players Julius Peppers and Ronald Curry to join the team for the ACC season.

The Tar Heels finished 8-20 overall, 4-7 in the ACC. But the program took a huge swing upward this season with the addition of freshmen Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants and Sean May. The Tar Heels won the Preseason NIT and were on their way to a likely NCAA bid before May suffered a broken foot that forced him to miss the entire ACC schedule.

Nonetheless, North Carolina beat Duke at home to close the regular season, defeated Maryland in the first round of the ACC tournament and then advanced to the third round of the postseason NIT, where it lost to Georgetown and finished 19-16.

If the Tar Heels return intact for 2003-04, they will be one of the favorites to win the ACC.

But some alumni and those close to the program have grown tired of rumors that the players are unhappy. This is the third straight season of player-coach friction, and the players who have left early for the NBA (Forte) and the NFL (Peppers), or transferred (Brian Morrison, Adam Boone, Neil Fingleton) all said they had legitimate reasons to bolt.

But the constant rumors that the three highly touted freshmen wanted out at some point have caused distractions this season. None of the players said publicly that they wanted to leave. Because of that, Baddour was encouraged by Doherty to speak with them last week.

Baddour said he wanted the facts straight from the players.

Members of the media have been camped out for days in front of the Smith Center to learn what went on in Baddour's meetings, and if anyone wants to leave the program or if Doherty will be replaced. The badgering has led the administration and others close to the program to demand that the saga end soon.

Sources said there have been calls for former assistant Phil Ford to join the coaching staff, but his interest in such a position is unknown. Ford wasn't retained when Doherty was hired; instead, Doherty remained loyal to the staff he had assembled at Notre Dame. That move irked some Tar Heels loyalists.

Ford, who works in the university's Educational Foundation, has become a trusted confidant for the players.

If Doherty is ousted, the Final Four will become a feeding frenzy with the job opening. Baddour also risks being vilified if he is influenced by Carolina players to remove Doherty.

Kansas coach Roy Williams, who spurned the Tar Heels three years ago and remained at Kansas, would become Carolina's top target once again. Williams was peppered with questions about the Carolina job last week at the West Regional in Anaheim, Calif., the day before the Jayhawks beat Arizona for a trip to the Final Four.

A rift between Williams and Kansas AD Al Bohl could force Williams to listen again. Williams' children also live in the North Carolina area and he has a home in South Carolina.

Philadelphia 76ers coach Larry Brown and Milwaukee Bucks coach George Karl, both members of the Carolina family, would resurface again as candidates. Tar Heels officials also could look outside their inner circle for the first time since Dean Smith resigned. Kentucky's Tubby Smith, Utah's Rick Majerus, Illinois' Bill Self, Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson, Marquette's Tom Crean -- another Final Four coach who might face UNC-fueled distractions in New Orleans -- Gonzaga's Mark Few and a host of others could be involved if the search expands.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.