UNC Basketball: Could there be a new Felton in the Carolina family?

Could Hubert Davis and company nab the UNC basketball program’s third Felton over the past 20 years?

Raymond Felton is, to this day, one of the greatest point guards to ever grace the North Carolina basketball program. His three years in Chapel Hill more than a decade-and-a-half ago were among the best that the Tar Heels and their ravenous fan base have ever seen.

They yielded three All-ACC selections, a third team All-American nod, a Bob Cousy Award trophy and a national title in 2005. Felton also went on to play 14 productive seasons in the NBA, and has remained an excellent ambassador for the Tar Heels in his post-collegiate years. So, to say that Felton is one of the Tar Heels’ most prized and admired alumni would be an understatement.

North Carolina fans will remember the brief stint that Felton’s nephew, Jalek, spent with the Tar Heels before being expelled from the school following claims of sexual misconduct. The younger Felton had very little impact on any one game with the Tar Heels, let alone the 2017-18 season as a whole. And while the Jalek Felton saga has become merely a footnote of a short and distasteful situation in UNC basketball lore, there’s now another Felton on the horizon that Tar Heel fans — and everyone else — should be keeping an eye on.

Jahseem Felton, cousin of Raymond, is currently a freshman at Westminster Catawba Christian School in Rock Hill, South Carolina. A 6-foot-5, 175-pound combo guard from the class of 2024, Felton already has scholarship offers from Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, Ole Miss, South Florida and Wake Forest, and many more offers from high major programs will come over the next couple of years.

"“I bring energy, I play defense. I can score the ball and handle under pressure, too,” Felton told Rivals’ Jamie Shaw in a recent interview. “I bring a lot of energy to the floor, but with my scoring and my handle I hear a lot of people say I play like Ja Morant”"

Neither Rivals nor 247Sports have assigned rankings to current high school freshman, but once they do, Felton should be somewhere near the top, and likely have at least four stars next to his name.

The Tar Heels are not among the programs currently involved with Felton, but given his family history with the school, his proximity to Chapel Hill and obvious talent, it stands to reason that newly-appointed UNC head coach Hubert Davis would benefit from reaching out to the rising guard. We’ll continue to follow any future developments with Jahseem Felton and the Tar Heels, and keep UNC fans apprised of them.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all of that, and everything on the UNC basketball program.