UNC Basketball: Players in the portal North Carolina has reached out to

The transfer portal officially opened on March 13th, the night of Selection Sunday. Who has UNC Basketball shown interest in since then?

When the UNC Basketball season ended on Selection Sunday when the Tar Heels didn’t hear their name called, the focus immediately turned to 2023-2024 and building a roster ready to compete.

The transfer portal opened a few hours after the Selection Show ended and players all over the country began looking for new homes. With so many players in the portal, and players entering the portal to leave UNC, it can be hard to keep up with all of the options. We’re here to recap everything that has happened just three weeks into the off-season.

First and foremost, it’s important to note that the Tar Heels have had six players enter the transfer portal: Justin McKoy, Tyler Nickel, Dontrez Styles, Puff Johnson, Will Shaver, and Caleb Love. This means before UNC signed anyone, they had six open scholarship spots to fill. Tyler Nickel has already committed to ACC foe, Virginia Tech.

Now that we know that there are six spots to fill. Let’s take a look at the players who have heard from the UNC Basketball program. We’ll start with the ones who seem to be receiving the most interest, to our knowledge, in joining the program.

Paxson Wojcik: Paxson committed to North Carolina on Monday, March 27th after taking an official visit. Wojcik is a transfer from Brown University who will have one season of eligibility remaining. UNC will be his third school as he spent the first two seasons of his career with Loyola Chicago before transferring to Brown. He averaged 14.9 points per game last season for the Bears. Wojcik is currently ranked as the 64th-best player in the transfer portal according to 247Sports. Wojcik has Carolina ties to the program as his dad was an assistant for UNC Basketball from 2000-2003 under Matt Doherty.

Nicolas Timberlake: Nick Timberlake is one of the most sought-after three-point shooters available in the transfer portal. Since head coach Hubert Davis has reached out to him, the Tar Heels have had an in-home visit with the guard from Towson, and Timberlake has made an official visit to Chapel Hill on March 28th. Timberlake will be entering his sixth season of eligibility after spending five seasons at Towson. Timberlake is a guard who can shoot the ball well from beyond the arc and could be a huge addition to the UNC Basketball program for 2023-2024. Timberlake is currently ranked 12th in the transfer portal by 247Sports. Prior to his official visit on Tuesday, UNC received a Crystal Ball prediction from Colby Giacubeno IMS for Timberlake to 100% commit to the Tar Heels.

Dalton Knecht: We haven’t heard of much movement in the recruitment of Dalton Knecht since Carolina officially reached out to him last Monday. Knecht is transferring from the other UNC, Northern Colorado. He is currently the highest-ranked player in the transfer portal that has heard from UNC coming in at sixth as of the writing of this article. Knecht is a six-foot-six who averaged 20.2 points per game last season while shooting 38.1% from three.

Kowacie Reeves: Kowacie was one of the first players that heard from North Carolina during the first week of the transfer portal opening. Since then, we haven’t heard much about the recruitment of Reeves or if it has progressed any further. Reeves hasn’t had eye-popping stats but averaged 17.5 minutes per game through his first two seasons with Florida. During his time with the Gators, he averaged 8.5 points per game. Reeves would have two years of eligibility remaining when he finds his new home and he is currently the 14th-ranked player in the transfer portal.

Jae’lyn Withers: Withers is transferring from Louisville and heard from Coach Davis and his staff when he entered the portal. He will be a rising senior and is part of the last class of college players that have the COVID year of eligibility if he wishes to use it, giving him two years of eligibility. This is one of the few players that Coach Davis and his staff have reached out to that isn’t a guard as that seems to be the primary focus for the UNC Basketball program. Withers is a six-foot-nine forward who shot 41.7% from three last season. He is ranked 55th in the transfer portal by 247Sports.

That’s all the players in the portal that we officially know of at the moment that has heard from UNC. Just a reminder, the Tar Heels now have five open scholarship spots after the commitment of Paxson Wojcik. There’s some possibility of a player in the class of 2024 reclassifying to fill one of the spots, but we have no confirmation on if that will happen or not. We will continue to track players individually as we progress through the off-season as well.

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