Well I don't have inside information and don't claim to. And I appreciate the info you drop on the board. For free, might I add!
I don't think anyone claimed you were predicting Carter to UNC, or even disputing what you've heard. But the "Harrison Barnes" comparison is tired. And extremely overused on this board. It's always brought up so casually when someone is suggested to be highly considered a lock to another school, yet we haven't pulled a Harrison Barnes type commitment since Harrison Barnes. And we're completely ignoring the comments he made about Trent Jr. Some of you said Okafor/Jones's *ahem* marriage would never work out, and they proved that they were committed to their pairing. Are we going to offer Trent Jr. just to get Carter?
It's not impossible something falls through, but if it looks, sounds, and behaves like a duck, I am not going to call it a Lion.
As far as us not recruiting Carter, I believe Roy will do what he feels right. As he should. But we all know very well how it's gone in the past by prioritizing one recruit and having them commit elsewhere. And it gets even worse nowadays because it's basically all or nothing with kids, now that so many top ranked recruits wait so late to commit. I have no reason to believe Roy would change his tactics in this class, but this class isn't like the ones we've had in the past. In fact, I think it's quite unique. We have nothing that should scare off top ranked recruits, but we're still not the prime destination. Two things that haven't co-mingled for us in the history of UNC Basketball (IMO).
But Rose, what I am trying to get across is it is not as if carter is the only front court guy we were recruiting and it isn't the case that Roy recruiting carter takes anything away from his recruiting any of our other front court prospects. So the eggs are by no means all in the carter basket or the Bamba basket or any basket.
I am not ignoring the comments about Trent but I am as well not taking the fact that Jones and Winslow package deal worked out as proof this one will as well? In the end carter wil make his own decision, Trent committing to duke would for sure help them, Trent committing to Ky would help Ky but it is not the final word. If in the end carter feels UNC is the best place for him and Trent commits duke, then they wil be on opposing teams.
There is NOTHING K or Capel would love more than every coach in the country to stop recruiting Carter and assume based on his saying that he will likely play with Trent in college that he is a done deal to duke. Roy needs to hang in there with this kid and no matter how willing you guys may be to go ahead and concede this kid to duke, it is a heck of a lot closer than you seem to think.
Now I have to disagree on the mention of Barnes as well as Brandan Wright, Roy didn't concede either of those guys to duke. Now many don't want us to talk about that because it does not fit the narrative agenda that is being currently spun. Why should we not talk about our wins, duke is not shy about talking about theirs? I am gonna disagree one one other thing, this deal about Ingram would have been ours but we lost him to duke, the kid was never ours, the kid himself LOVED duke, his dad loved UNC. The only reason we were even on his list was to please daddy but daddy was not the payer, the kid was and Ingram was always going to be a dukie, that didn't change because of NCAA stuff, that was a smoke screen used to move forward that UNC has NCAA problems agenda, Giles situation was really not that much different. Roy hung in there with Ingram thinking the relationship with Stackhouse, Reggie, and Theo may give him a shot. But the real truth is Ingram was never a must get recruit for us, we had JJ and Theo, we didn't need a 3rd wing.
Folks bring up names like Ochafor, Parker, Giles, and want to say Roy wasted time recruiting them when he could have been recruiting someone else? Roy basically pulled out of those recruitments when he saw he was wasting his time there and moved on to other guys. Just because a kid grows up in the state of NC does not automatically make them a Tar Heel slam dunk.
Jordan grew up as more of a NC State fan than Tar Heel fan, David Thompson grew up more a UNC fan than NC State fan, look how that turned out. Just cause a kid grows up in the state does not automatically mean he is a life long Tar Heel fan or even if he is it does not mean he will play for UNC. Folks assumed Giles and Ingram would commit to UNC simply because they played high school ball in the state and when they didn't the automatic responce was we lost to duke? We have had great players that grew up in state but we have had many more that grew up in other states and yet they represented the program wonderfully. Look now at Marcus, look at Sean May, look at the voice of the Tar heels today Montross, Indiana kid like Sean was.
We're in prime position to return to the top of the mountain. Part of that requires a good supporting class to replace, at the very minimum, 5 experienced players graduating/declaring for the draft. We've missed on recruits by focusing primarily on guys who ended up going elsewhere in the end. I don't pretend to know what the outcome will be with Carter, but I do know what this looks like from the past.
EDIT: As far the recruiting "gurus" that had Barnes going to Dook, the same could have been said about Ingram and Giles for a time, but in reverse.
