Former UNC Basketball target picks rival Duke

The recruitment for a former UNC Basketball recruiting target has officially come to an end and it’s not good news for North Carolin.  Hubert Davis and his staff’s pursuit of five-star recruit Dereck Lively ended weeks ago as it appeared as if the Tar Heels weren’t going to land him after recruiting him for months now. 

But on Monday, things got a little worse for the Tar Heels.

Lively officially ended his recruitment with a verbal commitment to Jon Scheyer and the Duke Blue Devils. A bit of a thorn in their side despite knowing pulling Lively into their class wasn’t happening for some time now. Seeing him go to the Blue Devils just makes it sting that much more.

The talented five-star center had a total of 22 offers in his recruitment but in the end picked Duke over finalists Kentucky and Penn State. The Blue Devils hung around in the recruitment and over the past several weeks made up a lot of ground.

The 7-foot-1-inch, 220-pound center is ranked No. 2 nationally, the No. 1 center and the No. 1 player in the state of Pennsylvania per the 247Sports composite rankings. The only player ranked higher than him is Kentucky commit Shaedon Sharpe.

With the commitment of Lively, Duke’s class has four commitments and they have passed both UNC and Kentucky in the recruiting rankings for the 2022 cycle. UNC did take over the top spot briefly last week with a commitment from Tyler Nickel but now it appears as if Duke will finish with a Top 2 class. Meanwhile, UNC’s class is likely wrapped up with four commitments of their own in the cycle, the first under Hubert Davis.

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