Friday, September 03, 2004

UNC & recruiting in 2005

It's never to early to see who'll be in Chapel Hill in 2005. Last week CNNSI listed the top 100 players in the class of '05 (link via Collegeball)and I thought I'd see how the Heels made out. I mentioned last week that UNC signed Tyler Hansbrough and Duke already has commitments from five players. Earlier this spring Roy Williams signed guards Bobby Frasor and Marcus Ginyard.

From Roy Williams perspective, I'm sure he'll be trying to replace the big three, Ray Felton, Rashad McCants and Sean May (and who knows, if Marvin Williams has a great year, he might be gone too) at seasons' end. And even though McCants says he wants to stay for four years, I don't think anyone would fault him for splitting early -- especially when you consider he'll be one of the best 2/3 guards in the country.

So with that in mind, and given the signings of two shooting guards and a power forward, let's take a look at who Williams' has his eye on:

PosRankNameCommittedRecruiting
PF6Andray Blatche-X
PF7Tyler HansbroughX-
PF8Richard Hendrix-X
SG9Martell Webster-X
SF10C.J. Miles-X
C14Andrew Bynum-X
PF15Jon Brockman-X
SF17Tasmin Mitchell-X
SG27Lewis Clinch-X
PG29J.P. Prince-X
PF34Uche Echefu-X
SG35Bobby FrasorX-
SG41Marcus GinyardX-
SG43Danny Green-X
PF44Kevin Rogers-X
PF52Leo Criswell-X
C72Cyrus McGowan-X
C76Ahmad Nivins-X
C92Alfred Aboya-X
C93Anthony Sparks-X
Well it's good to see Williams going after a center, because as it stands, the last real big man in Chapel Hill may have been Brendan Haywood. Either way, I think I overreacted last week when I said that the Tarheels only had signed one player for 2005. As the table shows, they have a commitment (technically these players all verbally committed -- they can't sign until the fall) from three players. Good stuff.