This week was a weird week for Tar Heel fans — the men’s basketball season came to an end sooner than it had since the 2013-14 season. Perhaps even weirder than that was coming to terms with the fact that Theo Pinson and Joel Berry II suited up in Carolina blue for the last time in their legendary careers. Both of them will be hard to replace, and yet this is the task that Roy Williams is left with. So far he has three highly talented players locked up for next year, but Jalek Felton’s exit from the program still leaves a scholarship to be filled. That is where we begin this week’s recruiting recap.

Basketball

Next week the 41st annual McDonald’s All-American game will tip off at Philip’s Arena in Atlanta. North Carolina signees Coby White and Nassir Little will both be in attendance, giving the Tar Heels their first participants in the event since Tony Bradley. Nassir Little is currently ranked as the 6th best player in the nation according to 247 Sports, with Coby White ranked 23rd overall.

Another player that will be participating in the event is E.J. Montgomery, a five-star 6’10 power forward from Marietta, GA. Roy Williams has been trying his best to recruit Montgomery following a season where WIlliams was forced to coach a different style of offense for almost the entire season. Montgomery is still supposed to take an official visit to campus this spring, but a date has yet to be set. With White and Little playing in the All-American game with Montgomery, perhaps they both can get into Montgomery’s ear a bit during their stay in Atlanta.

As far as 2019 goes, Roy Williams and Hubert Davis paid a visit to 2019 five-star target Armando Bacot. This makes it the third visit that Williams has made to Bacot in the past five weeks, and something tells me Bacot will be seeing Williams a lot more of him this summer and beyond. It’s clear that Williams wants nothing more than to go back to his inside-out style of play starting this fall, and would love to make sure he doesn’t face this past season’s issues in the near future. 247 Sports’ Crystal Ball currently gives Duke the edge over UNC in acquiring both Bacot and Montgomery, but anything is possible before it’s time for either of these players to commit. Isn’t that right, Zion Williamson?

Football

This weekend three-star running back Patrick Garwo will take a visit to UNC. UNC has put in a lot of time recruiting him in hope to add him to the 2019 recruiting class.

Garwo shared a few words this week about UNC, and about the recent acquisition of running back coach Robert Gillespie:

“They just got a new running backs coach change,” Garwo said. “I was on the phone with (running backs) coach (Robert) Gillespie (Tuesday), just getting to know each other, developing a (relationship). Coach Scott with me is a huge need. Coach Scott probably hits me up every day, about beyond football, what North Carolina could do for me.

”Just like Syracuse, Rutgers, they need a guy to change their program, dominant at running back, he likes how I’m versatile and just wanting me to get down to campus for a while, so I’m taking a visit to see how they are bonding, family atmosphere, how the program is, how they run the ball. North Carolina, they’re really on me a lot.”

There’s not much else to report on the football side of recruiting for this week, but I did want to point out that spring practice has officially kicked off and the new seats are being installed in Kenan Stadium. Rest in peace, bleachers. I will not miss how you tried roasting me like a rotisserie chicken.