UNC Basketball: Kentucky Wildcats enter race for coveted five-star recruit

John Calipari, Kentucky Wildcats enter race for five-star UNC basketball target

It wasn’t all that long ago that Robert Dillingham to North Carolina seemed like a fairly safe bet. The five-star point guard was trending toward the Tar Heels, with a number of recruiting analysts and college basketball insiders believing that Hubert Davis and company had the lead in his highly publicized recruitment. And while that may have been true at the time, it couldn’t seem further from the truth these days.

As the summer months wore on, talk of Dillingham potentially committing to North Carolina got less and less, as the Tar Heels’ perceived stranglehold on his recruitment completely disappeared. Furthermore, Dillingham’s recruitment has become more and more curious, particularly over the past month when he enrolled at Kanye West’s new private, tuition-free school — Donda Academy — located in Simi Valley, California.

Then, as Keeping It Heel touched on earlier this month, things got even stranger when Dillingham’s father was reportedly unable to contact his son, and claimed that the high school junior was missing classes. All the while, rumors and speculation surrounding Dillingham’s transfer to Donda Academy continued to swirl, specifically why he enrolled there to begin with and if there was an exchange of money involved.

Now, in a turn of events that shocks absolutely no one, Kentucky, LSU and Memphis are heavily recruiting Dillingham, and are currently considered by many to be in the driver’s seat. The three programs have all gotten official visits from Dillingham over the past month, which seems to further support that notion. Add to that the fact that all three are now considered “warm” according to 247Sports, while the Tar Heels have been downgraded to “cool.”

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tar Heels pulled their scholarship offer to Dillingham altogether. Their focus on him appears to have shifted just as much as his has on them, particularly once they received a commitment from five-star combo guard Simeon Wilcher.

We’ll continue to follow the Dillingham recruitment for any developments in the coming months, as well as everything on the UNC basketball class of 2023.