Michael Malone and UNC reportedly end its pursuit of five-star Darius Wabbington

In most cases, high school recruits are removed from a program's target list once they've selected a future college home.

However, there are some rare occasions where the school is the one who backs off their initial interest in a certain player.

That seems to be the case for five-star big man Darius Wabbington, who included UNC on his list of six finalists and was scheduled to take an official visit to Chapel Hill on October 30. Plans have changed, as UNC is reportedly no longer interested in pursuing Wabbington.

UNC is no longer pursuing five-star big man Darius Wabbington

Multiple outlets confirmed the news on Saturday, with Wabbington's father telling David Sisk of Tar Heel 247 that North Carolina made the decision.

There could be a couple of factors that might have played a role in this.

For starters, Wabbington has been heavily connected to Arizona. If North Carolina believed he was close to a lock to play for Tommy Lloyd, it's possible Michael Malone and his staff decided to not waste their time pursuing him when there's other options on the board.

Speaking of other options, Malone made two trips to Prolific Prep this week. One of the five-star talents on their roster is five-star big man Lewis Ovwo. Maybe North Carolina wants to focus its attention on Ovwo (or other big man targets)?

Things have been rather quiet on the Wabbington front since he revealed his official visit schedule back on July 17. There could be other factors involved to why UNC decided to pull out of this recruiting battle, but those questions are likely to remain unanswered.

The 2027 recruiting board is starting to narrow for Michael Malone and the Tar Heels. At this point, we have a pretty good grasp of the players the Tar Heels are heavily pursuing, putting their eggs in those particular recruiting baskets.

For whatever reason, Darius Wabbington is no longer on their radar.

We'll have to wait and see whether North Carolina ramps up its efforts on known recruiting targets (such as Uvwo) or jumps into a mix of other Class of 2027 standouts they believe fit the future of the UNC basketball program better.

If you're keeping tabs at home, you can officially cross Darius Wabbington off UNC's recruiting board. It's one less player to keep an eye on, but the focus can now officially be shifted elsewhere.

At this point, you'd have to think that CJ Rosser and Jordan Page remain the top targets for Michael Malone's first official recruiting class. Adding a point guard (such as Beckham Black or Nasir Anderson) along with the aforementioned duo seems to be the dream scenario for UNC, which could look for other options (both via high school and transfer portal recruiting) to find a big man who can come in and complement the potential youth infusion that this recruiting class could offer.

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