The 2026 recruiting cycle has not gone the way that Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program had hoped for.
On Tuesday, highly-coveted five-star wing Bryson Howard made his college decision. Choosing between a trio of Blue Bloods: Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina, Howard elected to call the school down the road his future home.
Unfortunately, this is not the first Class of 2026 product who elected to commit to a rival ACC program. Cole Cloer got the ball rolling when he committed to Will Wade and NC State, while Howard followed by landing with the Blue Devils. Some other key recruiting targets have also landed elsewhere, such as Tajh Ariza (Oregon), Tony Bryant (Missouri), and Quinn Costello (Michigan), while Miikka Muurinen elected to play professionally overseas instead of going the college route.
Sure, it's very justified to wonder why the UNC basketball program is struggling on the recruiting trail. You won't have to search long, given how recent five-star additions have panned out during the Hubert Davis era.
Drake Powell went on to be a first round pick in the NBA Draft, but his usage and development during his lone season in Chapel Hill was highly scrutinized (with Hubert Davis receiving the majority of the blame). Ian Jackson went from being a projected lottery pick before the season to a player who essentially became glued to the bench down the stretch in his lone season with the Tar Heels.
Heck, you can even go back two years and look at Elliot Cadeau's development. There's a very strong case to be made that North Carolina didn't utilize him properly either.
What's frustrating is that the program has fallen behind on the recruiting trail. We're no longer in a world where guys simply want to wear the Carolina Blue uniform: with all the different aspects involved in college athletics, elite recruits want the best of both worlds.
Simply put: they want to capitalize on NIL while also finding the best situation to put themselves in to be a potential one-and-done player.
Based on how this recruiting class has gone thus far, the Tar Heels desperately need Caleb Wilson to defy the odds, as a stellar year from the five-star freshman could help change the narrative that the UNC basketball program is trying to overcome.