Lost in the March Madness craziness have been a few announcements in the world of recruiting. We’re entering the home stretch of key college basketball decisions, and the 2020 recruiting cycle is heating up for football. Here are a few of the happenings over the past few weeks.

Football

• LaMareon James adds his name to the list of players who have announced commitments to Mack Brown and North Carolina. From the famed Tidewater region in Virginia, the 3-star athlete verbally committed shortly after visiting on UNC’s Elite Junior Day on March 9th. Currently ranked as the #17 player in Virginia, James is the seventh commitment in the class of 2020. With Dre Bly reconnecting with his old stomping grounds, James won’t be the last Tidewater recruit to commit to North Carolina.

• In-state offensive lineman Mitchell Mayes is officially off the board. The #2 player in North Carolina verbally committed to Clemson after taking an official visit to the Tigers. On the surface, it’s frustrating to see top talent leave the state, but at least it’s Clemson and not another in-state program.

• The next major recruiting event will be April 13th when UNC holds its Spring Game. Still a month away, it’s unclear if that will be used as a weekend to focus on official visits, or if it’ll be an unofficial event like the previous Junior days in March and February.

Basketball

• First, the bad news. This won’t come as a shocker if you’ve been following his recruitment lately, but Keion Brooks officially announced that he will attend Kentucky next season. It’s a blow to the Heels’ efforts to land a quality wing for next season, but the writing was on the wall after he didn’t come back to campus post-official visit. Best of luck to Keion.
• As we mentioned on March 8th, Carolina’s Senior Night attracted an almost unprecedented amount of talent from the 2019, 2020, and 2021 classes. 2019 5-star forward Precious Achiuwa may be the most pressing need, but 2020 5-star wing Greg Brown III wasn’t shy about how UNC made him feel in this interview with Clint Jackson of Tar Heel Illustrated. The general vibe was that the entire weekend was a success, but this is recruiting. Anything can change.
• UNC’s lone commitment from the class of 2020 finished his junior season in style. Day’Ron Sharpe led South Central High School to the North Carolina 4A state championship. He also earned MVP honors to go with the victory. Folks, he still has a year of development before he even gets to Chapel Hill.

• Finally, the prized jewel in UNC’s 2019 class is Cole Anthony. If you are one to believe in “crystal balls” and “fan casts” from the two primary recruiting services, then Tar Heel fans should be ecstatic. Both Evan Daniels of 247 Sports and Corey Evans of Rivals made their predictions for Anthony to UNC in recent weeks. Evans also gave a little background to his reasoning about why he thinks Anthony will announce a commitment to UNC in the coming weeks. He would add a welcome jolt to a recruiting cycle that has proven frustrating.