UNC basketball rumors: 5-star 2024 commit Ian Jackson in makes first cut for Team USA U19 team
It will still be more than a year until Ian Jackson sets foot in Chapel Hill, but the UNC basketball commit is already showing Tar Heels fans exactly what they can expect from him — namely, being one of the best players in the 2024 recruiting class and under-19 players in the United States.
Jackson is participating in the USA Basketball U19 training camp and tryouts this week in Colorado Springs. And after four sessions, the group of 35 initial invites was trimmed down to 18 players. Only six of those players are current high school players, one of which was Jackson.
Drake Powell, another North Carolina commit for the 2024 class, was also invited but did not make it through the first cut from 35 to 18.
In Jackson's case, he's proving his pedigree with Team USA in hopes of making the team for the FIBA U19 World Cup in Hungary, which will be played June 24-July 2. As the No. 5 overall recruit in the 2024 cycle, the 6-foot-4 guard has immense talent as an elite athlete and top-notch scorer that could make waves before ever joining the Tar Heels.
With the tournament set to tip off in just 10 days, more cuts are surely coming soon as USA Basketball will trim the roster to 12. Jackson is now very much in the running to join that group for Hungary with only six more cuts remaining and his hopes still alive.
UNC basketball rumors: Rick Pitino snipes Simeon Wilcher after surprise decommitment from Heels
On June 6, 4-star combo guard Simeon Wilcher, the No. 34 player in the 247Sports Composite rankings for the 2023 class, decommitted from the North Carolina Tar Heels in a shocking move that definitely felt like a bit of a blindside from the Roselle, NJ native.
At the time of his decommitment, though, it was reported that Rick Pitino and St. John's, obviously a program trying to rebuild quickly with their new name-brand head coach, would be involved as they tried to keep Wilcher closer to home. That ultimately turned out to be the case.
Around a week after leaving UNC basketball in the dust, Wilcher has committed to the Red Storm to play for Pitino. That commitment landed St. John's in the updated Top 25 and 1 rankings from Gary Parrish of CBS Sports.
In terms of the immediate effects for the Tar Heels, they should ultimately still be fine in the 2023-24 season with their wing depth. The return of R.J. Davis combined with the arrivals of Cormac Ryan and Harrison Ingram should fill out the top of the rotation more than adequately and set up Hubert Davis with plenty of flexibility too in that capacity.
The longer-term outlook could be a bit more worrisome for UNC basketball, however.
Davis, in the midst of his recent recruiting boom and even before he took over for Roy Williams, has shown a strong propensity for landing prospects from the New York/New Jersey area. But with Pitino's presence at St. John's and his ability to sell the Red Storm as a local destination on the rise, that could make that recruiting ground exceptionally more competitive moving forward.
Losing Wilcher isn't the biggest of deals for North Carolina and their outlook going into next season. But it's likely a sign of what fans should be monitoring on the recruiting trail in the northeast for the future.
UNC basketball rumors: 5-star Jarin Stevenson visits Chapel Hill amid reclassification rumors
With 5-star point guard Elliot Cadeau reclassifying for the 2023 class from the 2024 cycle, the top-ranked UNC basketball recruiting class for next year took a hit. Hubert Davis, however, is working hard to secure that spot further by landing another 5-star commitment from Jarin Stevenson.
Stevenson, who has been on the Tar Heels' radar for several years now as one of the program's top targets, took a visit to Chapel Hill recently. More importantly, though, the latest intel suggest that Stevenson will announce a top three and could make a decision on his commitment by the end of the month, per Inside Carolina.
North Carolina is expected to, at minimum, be in the top three for the No. 22 overall recruit in the 247Sports rankings for the 2024 class. But the bigger question that has been circling around Stevenson is if he could reclassify and join Cadeau in the 2023 class.
The Inside Carolina reports and recruiting experts suggest that Stevenson would be better served to develop another year at the high school level as he's not considered as college basketball-ready as Cadeau. Even still, he could be another asset to boost the roster for the 2023-24 season in Chapel Hill as Davis and his staff still have three available scholarships remaining to hand out.
One thing to note, though, is that many of the big commitments that North Carolina has been able to secure recently have come not long after their official visits. Perhaps Stevenson will be an outlier there, but his visit to UNC was his last scheduled one before starting to get to decision time, so Tar Heels fans will have word soon on if the 5-star plans to head to Chapel Hill — and what year he plans to do so.
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