UNC Basketball: Hubert Davis, staff watch elite five-star recruit

With recruiting back in full swing for the month of June, UNC Basketball head coach Hubert Davis and his staff took full advantage.

Not only has North Carolina welcomed a few different targets in the 2022 class on campus, landing one after their visit but they have also been out on the recruiting trail evaluating other targets as well. Over the weekend, the staff was in Philadelphia for the Mid-Atlantic Individual School event as they watched five-star target Dereck Lively have a big game on Friday night in front of them.

But that wasn’t the only recruit they were watching and now the program has potentially a new target on their recruiting board.

In addition to Lively, the Tar Heels were one of the programs that watched five-star guard Zion Cruz over the weekend as well. Adam Zagoria of Zag’s Blog wrote over the weekend that UNC did watch Cruz and are expressing interest in the talented point guard:

"Zion Cruz, the 6-foot-5 combo guard from The Patrick School (N.J.) and the PSA Cardinals AAU program, remains open in his recruitment but a handful of schools appear to be focusing in on him.Auburn, North Carolina and Arizona State are all watching him this weekend as he plays with The Patrick School at The Hun School in the first evaluation period of June.North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis and assistant Brad Frederick were there for both the 7-1 Lively and Cruz, but have yet to offer Cruz."

In addition to revealing that UNC watched him, Zagoria also wrote that UNC is Cruz’s “dream school” and that he hopes to take a visit sometime this Summer. That’s big news for the program  considering they really just started to show interest in him of late.

The 6-foot-5, 175-pound combo guard out of New Jersey is ranked No. 17 in the 2022 class, No. 4 combo guard and the No. 1 player in the state of New Jersey per the 247Sports recruiting rankings. He has a total 19 offers in his recruitment so far and has taken two official visits.

While he doesn’t have an offer from UNC just yet, the interest shows that he could land one down the line and we fully expect UNC to continue to be involved in this recruitment.

For more on Cruz and other UNC Basketball recruiting targets, please check back with Keeping It Heel.