UNC Basketball: 5-star recruit’s father has incendiary words for Tar Heels

5-star recruit’s father trashes on the UNC basketball program, claiming that the Tar Heels did a “piss poor job” of recruiting his son

Well, that escalated quickly.

At least, that’s the feeling that I got after reading what 5-star class of 2020 prospect Greg Brown III’s father, Greg Brown II, had to say about the North Carolina basketball program in a recent interview with 247Sports’ Sam Webb.

The younger Brown, a 6-foot-9, 195-pound power forward that’s ranked ninth in his class according to the 247Sports Composite, was a target of the UNC basketball program for quite some time. That was, of course, prior to Roy Williams and the Tar Heels rounding out their star-studded recruiting class that’s ranked No. 3 in the nation, and includes three 5-star players in Day’Ron Sharpe, Walker Kessler and Caleb Love, as well as top-50 prospects R.J. Davis and Puff Johnson.

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Last summer, Brown had North Carolina on a short list of programs that he was considering attending, but things quickly changed after the Tar Heels reeled in what might be their best recruiting class of the Williams era. Apparently, Brown’s father doesn’t approve of the Tar Heels’ recruitment, or lack thereof, of his son. And despite the fact that Brown is still lined up to play basketball next season at one of a handful of terrific programs — Auburn, Kentucky, Memphis, Michigan or Texas — his dad still has bad blood for the Tar Heels and their coaching staff.

"“The crazy part (is) we loved North Carolina,” Mr. Brown said. “Like, North Carolina was at the top of the list. But the coaches just did a piss poor job of recruiting. Mind you, we started going to North Carolina last year for the Duke game. But we talked to them five times since then.I’m going to be honest with you…if they would have did their job the correct way, I’m almost willing to bet my life on that they would have got Cade (Cunningham) and Greg. But they (didn’t recruit hard). I think that’s probably why they hired the new recruiting coordinator. Because (before that) I don’t know what they was thinking.”It pissed me off. I’m going to be honest. I liked North Carolina, Greg liked North Carolina, and they kind of just gave him the cold shoulder. Maybe they didn’t think he was good enough? I don’t know… but, I guarantee if we catch their (behinds) in college we going to try to beat the lights out they (behinds). Greg is going to try to give they (behinds) a million!”"

Brown II goes on to talk about a number of topics in the interview, including all of the reasons that they will or won’t choose a particular school. Brown wants his son’s future college coach to “let Greg be Greg”, and not worry about putting him in a particular position. He also spends some time ranting about how his son’s position and skill set are so frequently misinterpreted by scouts and coaches.

It all makes me wonder if Brown’s dad understands how recruiting works. Does he realize that every team is recruiting multiple players at each position, and that somebody has to get the “cold shoulder”? According to him, an apparently world-renown recruiter and talent evaluator, the Tar Heels should have given that cold shoulder to anyone and everyone other than his son.

It’s highly doubtful that Williams and company didn’t think that Brown was “good enough”, or they wouldn’t have spent as much time recruiting him as they did. Perhaps they just felt like other players fit their system better, or maybe they saw a more “sure thing” in other recruits, as opposed to one that’s still without a college destination as the calendar is set to turn over to the month of March.

Or maybe, just maybe, they didn’t want to bring in a kid, regardless of how talented he was, that brought with him a prima donna helicopter parent that was destined to complain about playing time and coaching from the very start.

I suppose we’ll probably never know.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the 2020 recruiting class, and everything UNC basketball.