You love to see it! The North Carolina Tar Heels have put together quite an impressive transfer portal class. It was not initially looking like that would be the case when they hired Michael Malone off the street to everyone's surprise. The former Denver Nuggets head coach was able to close the deal on four players and get them to come to Chapel Hill. Landing three players late gave him a top-tier class.
As of early Friday morning, these are the 10 best transfer portal classes for 2026 over on 247Sports.
- Louisville Cardinals
- Texas Longhorns
- Indiana Hoosiers
- Tennessee Volunteers
- North Carolina Tar Heels
- Providence Friars
- Miami Hurricanes
- Arizona State Sun Devils
- Duke Blue Devils
- Texas A&M Aggies
The late additions of Matt Able, Terrence Brown, and Maxim Logue helped Malone get a top-five class in this transfer portal cycle. Prior to their commitments, the only player he had on the docket to come play at UNC was former Virginia Tech combo guard Neoklis Avdalas. Able comes to UNC from NC State, Brown from Utah, and Logue with FAU ties. UNC did lose eight players to the portal, though...
If Able, Avdalas, and Brown can amplify Jarin Stevenson and Henri Veesaar, look out for the Tar Heels!
Michael Malone did his job when it came to closing in the transfer portal
While the Tar Heels could have waited to hire Billy Donovan as its next head coach, as he stepped down leading the Chicago Bulls at the end of the NBA regular season, where would UNC be heading into next season? Malone had a plan of attack to get promising players on the rise to come into UNC to help revamp this thing on the fly. Year one may have its ups and down, but the class came together.
Frankly, because of a major coaching change, UNC was always going to have a great deal of transfers coming in. However, Malone being in place did wonders in helping ease a very tumultous situation. Now that UNC has a top-five transfer portal class, Tar Heels fans can rest easy knowing this team will be in halfway decent shape after how badly things ended with Hubert Davis at the helm of it last year.
At this time, we now have an identity for what next year's team could be all about. Clearly, Malone wanted players who had some working knowledge of the ACC coming in to make a big difference. The additions of Able and Avdalas certainly help in that regard. While Veesaar's NBA future looms large, Malone seems to have done enough to set the foundation for what UNC hoops can become.
Winning in the transfer portal and winning on the hardwood are different entities, but it is a great start.
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