UNC Basketball: How Ziaire Williams’ commitment WILL involve Tar Heels

He may not commit to the Tar Heels, but Ziaire Williams’ decision will involve the UNC basketball program, one way or another.

Roy Williams and the North Carolina basketball program have been recruiting Ziaire Williams for the better part of two years. The Tar Heels extended a scholarship offer to Williams in December of 2018, and immediately made him a high priority in their 2020 recruiting class. They stuck with it over the past several months despite widespread belief that Williams, a 5-star prospect ranked fifth in the nation, was basically headed anywhere but North Carolina next season.

Now, that’s no slight on the Tar Heels, or their efforts in recruiting him. It’s really a matter of geography when it comes down to It. UNC is the only school on his list that’s not within driving distance of his home in Chatsworth, California. And by all measures, it’s an honor for the Tar Heels to have made it this far in the process, given his seemingly obvious proclivity to remain close to home.

That might be the moral victory that UNC has to settle for when Williams’ recruitment comes to an end on Easter Sunday. Don’t think, however, that there won’t be a Tar Heel smiling somewhere once Williams’ announces his long-awaited decision.

When Williams sent out the tweet on Saturday afternoon that marked Sunday as the end of his long, intense recruitment, six new predictions went into his 247Sports Crystal Ball. Mind you, those predictions didn’t just come from his Uncle Ned, or Suzy blogger down the street. Director of Basketball Scouting Jerry Meyer, and Director of Basketball Recruiting Evan Daniels made up one-third of those last-minute projections. The two have combined to correctly pick 94 percent of 2020 recruits’ destinations, and Daniels has missed just one of his 82 picks on the year.

And who were all of those predictions in favor of? None other than the Stanford Cardinal, whose head coach is former UNC assistant Jerod Haase. After playing and coaching under Roy Williams at Kansas in the mid-to-late 90s, Haase worked for him on the UNC coaching staff from 2003 to 2012. Since then, he’s been the front man at UAB and Stanford, the latter of which he’s resided at since the start of the 2016 season.

If it is, in fact, Haase and Stanford that secure Williams’ commitment on Sunday, it’ll be the biggest get of the former Tar Heel’s career. And given the tireless effort that Haase has put into Williams’ recruitment over the past couple of seasons, there’s not a coach in the country that deserves him more.

Stick with Keeping It Heel for real-time updates of the Ziaire Williams announcement today, and everything UNC basketball.