UNC Basketball: Five-star recruit officially eliminates Tar Heels from list

When Hubert Davis took over as head coach of the UNC Basketball program, he quickly got to work on recruiting. And with that, he was able to focus on the top priorities on his recruiting board.

Over the past few months we’ve seen UNC establish that recruiting board by identifying their top targets and even landing three commitments for their 2022 class. But while in that process, UNC also fell back in some recruitments and wasn’t in contact nor evaluated certain recruits.

Among those recruits was five star small forward Mark Mitchell, a 6-foot-8, 205-pound recruit out of Wichita, Kansas that plays at Sunrise Christian. Mitchell was once thought of as a UNC target but over time that has faded.

On Saturday, the small forward trimmed his list of 10 offers down to a final four and in the process he officially eliminated the Tar Heels:

While early on Mitchell appeared to be a prospect UNC would continue to pursue to the end, things faded eventually and when Davis was hired, the Tar Heels appeared to be out of the race.

To make things worse, on Mitchell’s list of his final four are the Duke Blue Devils and they just might be the team to beat in this recruitment. Duke currently holds the lone crystal ball prediction, made from Blue Devils’ insider Adam Rowe. The Blue Devis have stuck around in this recruitment and could end up landing the talented small forward.

There’s still time to go in Mitchell’s recruitment but with UNC out of it, let’s hope another one of those teams can emerge and take the lead instead of him ending up in Durham.

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