UNC Basketball: Coby White has record-breaking night in the John Wall Invitational

This weekend high school basketball fans in the Triangle got to enjoy the John Wall Holiday Invitational — one of the premier high school basketball tournaments in the country that is usually laden with plenty of star power. One of the stars this year included future Tar Heel guard Coby White. He and his team the Greenfield Knights made it all the way to the championship round of the David West Bracket, only to lose to the Garner Trojans 80-90.

For those of you that have followed THB closely, you may recall that Garner is the team that Greenfield played when managing editor Tanya Bondurant and I got to see him play at the Millbrook Showcase earlier this month. White scored 46 points in the loss to Garner, accounting for more than half of Greenfield’s points. Prior to the start of the championship game in the John Wall Invitational, Coby White needed 38 points to break former Tar Heel Donald Williams’ scoring record in the tournament. White had already scored 46 points in the first round and 32 points in the semi-final round.

As it turns out, Garner didn’t have an answer for Coby White and the future Heel managed to break the 27-year-old scoring record by scoring 41 points, giving him a grand total of 119 points for the entire tournament. Interestingly enough, Donald WIlliams was not the only Tar Heel that he passed on his way to setting the record — former ACC Player of the Year Justin Jackson was not far behind Williams in scoring for the tournament.

Not only did Coby White break the tournament scoring record, but he has now passed the 3,000 mark for his high school career, and is that much closer to breaking the North Carolina state scoring record of 3,307. He should have little trouble achieving the milestone, as he is currently averaging a little over 30 points a game and has plenty of games left on the schedule.

The icing on the cake for White’s record-breaking performance was that Roy Williams was in attendance. Williams took advantage of the ACC-opener against Wake Forest being played locally and decided to travel to Raleigh to watch his future guard make history. As many would expect, good ol’ Roy couldn’t sit back and silently watch the game without making his presence known as well.

Coby White has been making a very strong case over the past year or so that he belongs amongst the top high school prospects in the country. He is one of the most dangerous offensive threats in the country by far, and should have no trouble coming across minutes once he arrives in Chapel Hill with the exit of senior Joel Berry. UNC fans will be in for a treat when this kid finally gets to suit up in Carolina blue.