UNC Basketball: Tar Heels leading the pack for 5-star recruit?

National recruiting analyst says UNC basketball program is leading the recruitment of 5-star small forward Harrison Ingram

Sure, the North Carolina basketball program is in the midst of its worst season in nearly 20 years. And sure, the prospect of the Tar Heels’ 2020 recruiting class coming in and turning things around next season has been covered ad nauseam.

But it truly is difficult to overlook or overstate the way that Roy Williams and company have been able to get North Carolina recruiting back to the gold standard that it was just a handful of years ago — prior to the NCAA’s investigation that hampered their efforts with highly touted high school prospects for the better part of four years.

With the nation’s No. 3-ranked recruiting class already in tow for next season, the Tar Heels have largely moved on to the class of 2021. And they’re not aiming low, either. They’ve already extended a half-dozen scholarship offers to 2021 recruits, and they’re all consensus 5-star players.

One of those players is Harrison Ingram, a 6-foot-7, 200-pound small forward out of St. Mark’s High School in Dallas, Texas that’s ranked 17th in the nation according to the 247Sports Composite. Ranked sixth among players at his position, and No. 1 in the Longhorn State, Ingram is a versatile wing with the ability to play multiple positions on both ends of the floor. He’s got great strength and size for a small forward, handles the basketball well, passes with efficiency, rebounds adequately and has a nice offensive game overall.

And the thing that UNC fans will be even more excited about is that Ingram has a great relationship with the Tar Heels’ coaching staff. So much so, that Rivals recruiting analyst Corey Evans believes that North Carolina is leading his recruitment early on. He touched on that in a recent Twitter Tuesday piece, noting that North Carolina is the current clubhouse leader in Ingram’s recruitment.

"“Purdue and Stanford are two of his top suitors, while Kansas, Memphis and Texas Tech are a few others to monitor, but no one has picked up more ground within his recruitment this winter than North Carolina,” Evans writes. “The Heels first hosted him last month for its game against Duke before offering him a week later. The interest is strong on both ends. If anyone can pull him away from the two highly respected academic schools, it is North Carolina.”"

Jerod Haase and the Stanford Cardinal are, no doubt, going to be a major player in Ingram’s recruitment. And unfortunately for North Carolina fans, a well-respected national recruiting analyst — 247Sports’ Brian Snow — recently tabbed Stanford as the eventual destination for Ingram. For those that don’t know, Snow has correctly predicted nearly 94 percent of his previous picks.

However, it’s still early in Ingram’s recruitment, and the Tar Heels are definitely in a good position, especially when you consider that he’s being targeted by the likes of Baylor, Florida, Kansas, Memphis, Tennessee, Texas and UCLA, among others.

Stick with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the Tar Heels’ pursuit of Harrison Ingram, and everything UNC basketball.