UNC Basketball: Tar Heels extend latest offer to rising 4-star prospect

The UNC basketball program has extended a scholarship offer to 4-star small forward Tyler Nickel.

Class of 2022 prospect Tyler Nickel has picked up his 18th scholarship offer, the latest coming from Hubert Davis and the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Nickel adds to a list of schools that already included Cincinnati, Creighton, Indiana, Iowa, LSU, NC State, VCU, Virginia Tech and West Virginia, among others. The 6-foot-8, 210-pound wing joins a group of a dozen other players in the 2022 class that already have outstanding UNC offers — 13 if you count already committed 3-star center Will Shaver.

Nickel’s UNC offer comes just a day after the Tar Heels’ entire coaching staff took in two of his games at the Rise Indoor Sports facility in Bermuda Run, North Carolina where he scored 64 combined points in two games. And that was the encore performance to an outstanding pair of games on Saturday — 31 points and 10 rebounds, and 36 points and 11 rebounds, respectively — in which he showcased a tremendous range of offensive ability that ultimately led to first-year UNC head coach Hubert Davis pulling the trigger on an offer.

Nickel, a native of Elkton, Virginia, averaged 33.7 points, 10.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game during his junior season at East Rockingham. He plans to visit North Carolina later this month, but has interest from a multitude of other schools, including more than a dozen in addition to the ones that have already offered him.

He is the No. 70 prospect in the nation according to the 247Sports Composite. He’s 17th among small forwards in the class, and No. 1 in the state of Virginia.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the Tyler Nickel recruitment, and everything UNC basketball.