TarHeelIllustrated - North Carolina Is Still Alive for A.J. Dybantsa
North Carolina made the cut of seven for the top player not only in 2025, but in all of high school basketball.
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North Carolina Is Still Alive for A.J. Dybantsa
- Thread starter andrew jones
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OK, if you say so... Not really holding my breath on this one.
Few things prettier than a well-dressed window around Christmas time! (except everything walking across UNC's campus all the time)
Correct. If this recruitment was organic we would be the favorite. The caveat is that few recruitments are organic these days...
Didn't dad just announce that this recruitment was going to be, "expensive, very expensive"?
Doesn't sound like our kind of recruitment.
Update- After posting this I tried to find the article in which I thought his dad said the nil requirement would be between $3 to 5 million and I could not.
I'm pretty sure I did not just make that up, but since I cannot confirm it, I will just say that we are in the top seven and in a better position than UConn, dook and Kentucky!!
Stranger things have happened.
Doesn't sound like our kind of recruitment.
Update- After posting this I tried to find the article in which I thought his dad said the nil requirement would be between $3 to 5 million and I could not.
I'm pretty sure I did not just make that up, but since I cannot confirm it, I will just say that we are in the top seven and in a better position than UConn, dook and Kentucky!!
Stranger things have happened.
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Hopefully we can get the kid on campus ... he's been to auburn & soon I think byu seems to be the early leader from what I've read
I wonder if/when these kids with their parents/handlers/agents will start weighing the short term benefits of NIL against the long term benefits of the quality of the environment, coaching and exposure they could get at other schools. Probably doesn't matter to them because these days it's all about the bucks .. NBA lite as it were .. and it's ruined the college game. jmo
"There are over (insert real number here) student athletes, and most of [them will] go pro in something other than sports."
With that knowledge, it is hard to argue against playing the demand-driven NIL field. Maybe a student-athlete doesn't have a good shot at making the pros, but in addition to a scholarship, they can leverage their "semi-pro" skills and get some good investment-starting funds before even qualifying for a career other than sports. That said, I don't like what NIL has become and agree with other opinions voiced that it has quickly evolved into something never intended and agree in part with @al_would that it has ruined the college game. It doesn't have the same draw to me as it used to. I want commitment, perseverance, and a focus on college education to become a spotlight again.
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I think the key phrase is "short term" - if you have been told all your life you are the next Kobe or whoever then your plan is NBA, and the short layover in college is a necessary evil. Look at the 2 kids who are at Rutgers this season - think they could care less about environment, coaching or exposure?
The kids that are ONLY interested in a stopover or compensation aren't the kids I want at UNC. I realize the reality of the situation but I am confident we have the right leadership to mitigate the societal issues that have changed all of college bball!
Yeah but there has been a good bit of movement toward Ky since then. Maybe they are still a package just not under our tree? It feels like we are ending up on a LOT of big time talents final list it does not feel like we are leading for any of them? This, along with having a disappointing portal season is becoming a real concern.
I keep hearing that we don't have a NIL problem for basketball, that maybe we do for football. Then I learn, we are combining the NIL for basketball and football? Well if we are fine with dollars for basketball NIL yet short on football NIL and we combine them does it not dictate that football gets more and basketball loses some? Like it or not, this is very much an "arms race" that requires big time funding and I do question if we have the funding to keep up? What players are demanding NOW to play for your program is not going to get cheaper as time passes, it will increase, you tell me how that slows down because there is no governor on it, nothing in place that slows it down. WE right now have a kid in high school still that is not just demanding but will get someone where between 4 and 5million to play for a college program folks and we are on his final list, we are window dressing and we know it. The kids we seemed to be in the best place for a couple months back but we do not seem to be leading for any at this point? Koa Peat, Jasper Johnson, Caleb Wilson, Isiah Harwell we seemed to lead for not long ago, does not look like we now lead for a single one of those guys today?
Only way to keep up will be getting out of the ACC and either getting in the BIG or SEC…You have to have the TV deals for Football to support the AD…Or you start cutting sport programs…UNC has I think 28 programs in total…
Football and Men’s basketball are the only programs at UNC that make money period…Every other 1 loses money..
Yeah Kool, that is the reality of the moment we find ourselves in, it is a reality none of us want. More reality, the ACC expended in to media markets that are not great college sports markets, Syracuse, BC, Miami, FSU are all more professional markets than college sports markets, that greatly effects the media deals that want to pay for being in college sports markets, exactly why both the SEC and the Big10 have shown interest in UNC, we are a big time college sports market and UNC is the flag ship North Carolina program.
Have to as well question how long we can keep as many money losing sports as we have...
I think a lot of these kids put UNC in the top 5-6 as leverage to boost NIL offers. Programs are willing to overspend to keep kids out of Chapel Hill.
As i said before, there is legit UNC love within his camp, as in if this was an organic recruitment we would probably lead.
However, the pragmatic queston of course comes back to the other factors present these days...
Being as crooked as $3 bils, they always had oodles of RICO-level illegal cash and prizes to spread about --- and now that network can simply funnel it to NIL...
Beat me to it Gary. It didn’t start with nil. Unfortunately the only two large colleges in the state are that way. My wife has taught a few kids that literally got paid to play for both bama and au. And now they’ve gotten a little notoriety in basketball and it’s “legal”. I feel like an old man hollering get off my lawn , but I hate the state of sports as a whole. But I also realize that comes with wisdom and age and realizing sports are secondary to a few things now.
You know the language --- nobody, nowhere ever matched the cash/cars network of the Red Elephant Club.
What I don't understand is.how.so.many savvy business men keep throwing $$$ at a system and certain universities and getting so little return on their investments.l???
Depends on what they want back in return... obviously national championships aren't one of them
That is an incredibly insightful question. Likely answer is they have some type of taxable deduction through either their primary or some type of shell/cut out business or corporation. Great poast TP !!
Yup. And I believe the madness will ultimately settle down. Boosters are going to realise that stumping up $4mill for a freshman is not going to guarantee a championship. It makes no sporting sense, nor business sense.
But hey, who said anything in life is meant to make sense…. Social media doesn’t make sense either.
Some / a lot of people have more $$ than sense .. but likely there is some type of tax deduction/advantage to it.
I believe it’s access and status. Think about the status it gives at their favorite school, access to elite athletes, their agents, shoe company sponsors, NBA personnel and various NIL networks (read: more entrepreneurs and more $$).. it’s not only about paying X to get Y. They have their own circle of influence that most of us will never step inside.
I recall a hypothetical scenario I read in an article with AJD’s father explaining how they were looking at schools on his list and NIL. He said if AJ really loves Kentucky and they offer $8M but another school comes in over the top offering $10M he is likely to go with the school he loves if the money is close.
But he didn’t say this to imply their ask is $8M (it is not) or that Kentucky is his favorite. And everybody should keep in mind that AJ will attract a number of NIL deals (trading cards, shoe deal, etc) which may be a factor in which school he ultimately chooses.
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