UNC Basketball Recruiting: Tar Heels Offer Kennedy Meeks What Does It Mean?
By Matt Hamm
The Tar Heels have made their third official offer in as many days offering 2013, four star, center Kennedy Meeks today.
It’s been an eventful last four days in Tar Heel Nation on the recruiting front. First on Monday, Troy Williams announced via Twitter that he would announce his intentions the next day, May 1st after school. Then the morning came and Troy was no longer interested in making his decision known. He tweeted he would work on an announcement date later in the week, saying he didn’t wake up feeling right. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
While many, including myself thought that possibly the Williams indecision may lead to Roy Williams to start offering other perimeter players. Prospects Nick King and Keith Frazier seemed like prime candidates, especially considering the recent spike in interest in the two players from Carolina.
North Carolina made some more offers alright. 2013 power forward Austin Nichols a four star prospect out of Memphis, TN was offered on Tuesday. Nichols, a talented prospect is not seen as a star ready type of player, rather someone who would need a little developing before he would be ready to contribute. Nichols is also believed to be leaning towards Duke, the offer was not very popular amongst the Tar Heel fan base, Nichols is no superstar, but he would be a very solid addition to any program.
2014, wait maybe 2013 who knows small forward prospect Noah Vonleh was offered as well. The Vonleh offer electrified Carolina faithful to the point that for a minute you could almost see everyone forget about the Williams situation and the unpopular Nichols offer. Vonleh is a stud, and can do just about anything he wants on the floor offensively. Shoot, pass, drive to the basket, finish at the rim, create for others, truly a total package.
Meeks is another player that isn’t a superstar but has star potential. A North Carolina born player, Meeks needs to give Joel James a call to gather weight loss tips. At 6-8, 280, Meeks is a big man, this time last year I had some concerns about James and whether or not he could fit into the Tar Heels style of play given his weight. Some 50 pounds lighter, faster and much more offensively advanced, James looks primed to try and steal away a starting spot in 2012. Meeks is a traditional big man and can really lock down his part of the block and is an effective back to the basket scoring option. His game is a little rougher than top prospects like Isiah Hicks and Julius Randle. But Kennedy Meeks has a great chance at being a high impact player in college basketball.
And finally, what does it all mean? What it means is, as we wait for top prospects like Williams, Randle, Jabari Parker etc to make their decisions. The Tar Heels aren’t standing around with their thumbs up their you know whats. UNC will not land every single player they have offers out to. In fact, it’s a very real possibility that the additions to the 2013 class will be players other than the ones the team has current offers out to.
It also tells me that Roy isn’t allowing Williams delay to affect his strategy. These aren’t snap decisions your seeing based on one or two recruits decisions, or lack thereof. Roy is a master recruiter, all of the players who have offers now are players he and his staff have been scouting for quite some time now. They haven’t made offers to players like Nick King, Keith Frazier, Joel Berry, Jalen Lindsay because Roy will not overreact and he will not bite off more than he can chew.
I go back to the recruiting philosophy Roy laid out for the Rams club recently. Roy believes you need a mix of five star, superstar potential, possible one and done talents to mix in with some guys that aren’t a threat to jump after one year. The old saying, UNC doesn’t rebuild, we reload. That isn’t because Carolina brings in six different five star players every season. It’s because they bring in one or two along with some very good four and sometimes even three star prospects. You need more than shiny appliances and granite kitchen counter tops to build a house. And Roy’s house always has solid foundations, but don’t worry, he’ll get some more shiny items as well before he’s done shopping for his 2013 or 2014 classes.