UNC Basketball: 5-star target postpones decision again

For the second time in under a month, UNC Basketball recruiting target Zion Cruz has postponed his decision. But this time it may benefit Hubert Davis and the Tar Heels the most.

Cruz was set to announce his college decision on Sunday, deciding between Auburn, Creighton and North Carolina. However, hours before the decision Cruz postponed it again leading to some speculation.

The five-star point guard was originally supposed to decide on August 19th but opted to postpone the decision. He later scheduled September 5th as his date but revealed he was postponing again due to a matter with a close family member.

Going into this decision, Auburn was the favorites to land the recruit among experts as Bruce Pearl and his program were hoping to land the commitment and add to their class. But shortly after the announcement, three analysts on Rivals made changes to their predictions. 

First, Rob Cassidy switched his pick from Auburn to North Carolina around 10:00 a.m. and then Christian Clemente of AuburnSports and Travis Graf of Cats Illustrated both made picks for UNC in the recruitment. However, Cassidy switched his pick BACK to Auburn in the afternoon. The only two picks for UNC are currently from Graf and Clemente.

On 247Sports, Auburn holds the lead for the Crystal Ball predictor and has for weeks now signaling that the recruit is likely not coming to North Carolina. Cruz also hasn’t visited UNC in bis recruitment and Auburn is the only three of his finalists to land a visit.

It’s odd to see a recruitment postponed twice now in the matter of two or so weeks but it still doesn’t feel like this is an ending that will favor the Tar Heels. Either way, we will continue to monitor Cruz’s recruitment moving forward.

For more on the UNC Basketball program and recruiting, please check back with Keeping It Heel.