Keeping It Heel
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UNC Basketball: 10 recruits UNC fans wish the Tar Heels had signed

By Blake Cockrum

MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 19: Head coach Roy Williams of the North Carolina Tar Heels reacts against the Miami Hurricanes during the second half at Watsco Center on January 19, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 19: Head coach Roy Williams of the North Carolina Tar Heels reacts against the Miami Hurricanes during the second half at Watsco Center on January 19, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /
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UNC Basketball
SYRACUSE, NY – MARCH 25: John Wall #11 of the Kentucky Wildcats gestures as he brings the ball up court against the Cornell Big Red during the east regional semifinal of the 2010 NCAA men’s basketball tournament at the Carrier Dome on March 25, 2010 in Syracuse, New York. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /

John Wall

John Wall was part of John Calipari’s first recruiting class at the University of Kentucky; the one that really changed things for the Wildcats — and all of college basketball — moving forward.

Wall was the No. 1-ranked point guard in the country, and top player in high school basketball according to some recruiting outlets — others had Georgia Tech commit Derrick Favors in the top spot.

Wall was joined by fellow 5-star prospects DeMarcus Cousins and Daniel Orton, as well as a host of others, in what made up the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation in 2009. Wall and the Wildcats had a successful run together, winning 35 games and an SEC regular season title. They also captured an SEC Tournament championship, and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They ultimately fell to West Virginia in the East Regional final in which Wall had a 19-point, nine-rebound effort in the 73-66 loss to the Mountaineers.

But before all of that, Roy Williams and the Tar Heels were recruiting the Raleigh, North Carolina native as aggressively as any program in the nation, including Kentucky. In the end, it was the first-year Kentucky head coach that pulled the blue chip recruit away from the Tar Heels, and out of his home state.

No doubt North Carolina could have used Wall’s production during the 2009-10 season, given that the Tar Heels — who’d just won the national title the season before — lost four of their five starters from the previous season, and had their worst campaign of the Roy Williams era. Among the things that the Tar Heels lacked that season was consistent point guard play, and Wall would have certainly solved that problem.

There’s no telling how much Wall’s inclusion on that North Carolina squad would have changed things, but they’d obviously have fared better than the 20-17 record that they finished with, resulting in a postseason NIT appearance — the only time in Williams’ 16-year tenure at North Carolina that the team hasn’t received a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

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