UNC Basketball: Harrison Ingram spurns North Carolina, picks Stanford

Former UNC basketball target and 5-star small forward Harrison Ingram will attend Stanford University in the fall of 2021.

The Tar Heels’ well-documented struggles to reel in elite wing prospects continued on Friday evening when 5-star small forward Harrison Ingram announced his commitment to Jerod Haase and the Stanford Cardinal. Ingram’s commitment to Stanford marks the second time in as many seasons that Haase and company have beaten out Roy Williams and the Tar Heels for a 5-star wing (Ziaire Williams).

Also losing out on the Ingram sweepstakes was Harvard, Howard, Michigan and Purdue, the latter of which was considered to be neck and neck with Stanford for the majority of his recruitment. In the end, though, it was Stanford who won out, and now boasts 5-star commitments in consecutive recruiting cycles, as well as two top-40 prospects in the class of 2021.

The Tar Heels, on the other hand, will double down on their remaining wing prospects in the 2021 class, Patrick Baldwin, Jr. and Caleb Houstan. Both are sensational college hoops prospects, but it’s quite possible that neither is headed to Chapel Hill next year; at least, not as a member of the Tar Heels.

Baldwin is looking like a pretty good fit for the Duke Blue Devils, while nobody seems to have much of an idea where Houstan is at in his recruitment. He’s got scholarship offers from Arizona, Duke, Gonzaga, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Texas Tech and Virginia, among others. Information on Houstan’s recruitment has been sparse to this point.

The Tar Heels did, however, have the good fortune of getting an early commitment from 4-star small forward and North Carolina native Dontrez Styles. He may not be the 5-star recruit that Ingram or a few of his top-25 classmates might be, but he’s a solid player that the UNC coaching staff can build their 2021 recruiting class around. He’ll also more than likely be in Chapel Hill for multiple seasons, whereas the aforementioned prospects could easily be headed for the NBA next summer.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the Tar Heels’ 2021 recruiting class, and everything UNC basketball.