Basketball Recruiting: North Carolina, haven for NCAA Division I talent

Is the state of North Carolina becoming the country’s top pool for talent?

In past years, the state of New York has held the title as the “Basketball Mecca” due to the amount of talent that has come from there.

Kenny Anderson, Billy Cunningham, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Bob Cousy, Stephon Marbury, Metta World Peace, Bernard King, Mark Jackson and many others were born and raised in the state of New York and ascended to basketball greatness.

Recently, the tides have turned. New York is no longer the home of the best high school talent in basketball. In fact, the state of North Carolina ranks better than New York when it comes to the amount of players recruited by Division I schools.

According to the NCAA’s Research Committee, the state of North Carolina ranks in the top five states with the highest percentage of male high school basketball players recruited by Division I schools.

This is very impressive and a sign of the times. Most of the states on this list are located in the southern part of the United States.

Dennis Smith, Jr. (North Carolina State), Harry Giles, Jr. (Duke), Edrice “Bam” Adebayo (Kentucky), Rawle Akins (Arizona) and Sacha Killeya-Jones (Kentucky) were ranked in the top 25 of the Class of 2016.

Every player went to a high-profile Division I school. Two, possibly three, of these players will forego their college eligibility and turn pro. Smith and Giles have already announced their decision to leave college early. Adebayo is expected to make his decision very soon.

North Carolina Tar Heels Basketball

North Carolina has a great deal of high school talent. The North Carolina Tar Heels have taken advantage of home-grown talent for their following groups of freshmen, in the classes of 2017 and 2018.

From the 2017 class, Brandon Huffman will be playing for the Tar Heels next season. Currently, he is a three-star player from Raleigh, North Carolina.

If you are unaware of the importance of high school basketball player rankings, let me put it to you this way:

Sophomore Luke Maye was rated as a three-star player from Huntersville, NC. He has had a huge impact on UNC’s 2017 Final Four run, despite the low ranking on recruiting boards. Maye hit the game-winning shot against Kentucky on Sunday to send the Tar Heels to the 2017 Final Four.

For the past several years, the state of North Carolina has had at least one high school basketball player ranked in the top ten in their respective class.

In 2014, UNC’s Theo Pinson was a five-star player, ranked 10th in his class. In 2015, Duke’s Brandon Ingram (Kinston) was five-star player, ranked third in his class. And in 2016, N.C. State’s Smith and Kentucky’s Adebayo were five-star players, ranked in the top five.

In the 2018 class, North Carolina has two four-star basketball players in Rechon “Leaky” Black and Coby White, who have already committed to play for the Tar Heels. Both Black and White (get it; black and white, yen and yang) grew up in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. Both players are ranked in the top-40 in their class.

With the state of North Carolina housing a great deal of basketball talent, this will hopefully lead to the Tar Heels having good recruiting classes. UNC head coach Roy Williams excels in developing his players. He is a master at this.

Continue to expect good things from the Tar Heels in coming years. Dominating the recruiting at home will advance the legacy of the North Carolina Tar Heels Basketball program.