Ya know, waking up on Wednesday to the news that Keeshawn Silver had unexpectedly ended his recruitment early and committed to UNC was definitely not the worst way to start a day. As my colleagues have noted, even with this ridiculously stacked North Carolina class, Mack Brown’s staff is taking just about whatever they want from it. Without even having left the state, UNC’s 2021 class is currently ranked 8th in the country, and the Heels have more 4-star or better commitments than all but 5 other schools: Texas, Notre Dame, Florida, Clemson, and Ohio State. Needless to say, UNC’s recruiting momentum is pointed just about straight up. Let’s get into the details:

Football:

• Silver’s commitment was the biggest news of the week, and it was a whopper. Jake covered most of it in the above-linked article, so check that out. For my part, I’ll share a fun little story, sourced from Reddit:

He said on Instagram Live in response to a UF fan telling him to decommit “Mannn, I ain’t going there lmao.”

The prospect of elite commits flipping after early commitments is always going to be a little scary for us, a non-elite program, but I feel like this one’s a little safer after that.

• It looks like 4-star in-state running back Evan Pryor made a return visit to UNC as soon as the February dead period was over. Ohio State’s going all in on him, and based on his recent Instagram presence, he’s pretty split, but has a lot of influence from close friends, including Gavin Blackwell, pushing him towards UNC. This is definitely one to watch.
• The Drake Maye buzz continues to buzz, but there’s no concrete information. According to a paywalled article, he “left the door open” to flipping in an InsideCarolina interview, but that could mean anything. We’ll keep you posted, but given that they seriously haven’t spent any time on quarterbacks besides him, the staff seems pretty confident.

Basketball

• Roy Williams is still making time to recruit even as he faces one of the biggest challenges of his coaching career, the Tuesday start of an ACC Tournament. On Tuesday, he hosted a couple of players from the class of 2022:

Bradley is obviously highly coveted, and Nix is a 3-star player with offers from Boston College and Washington State who’s got a lot of physical tools. This won’t be a big deal for a while, but it’s worth noting.

• The Heels got a preferred walk-on commit this week, and following a recent tradition, it’s another legacy: Creighton Lebo, son of Jeff, will join the 2020 class as a PWO.

He’s 6’1 and has a sweet shooting stroke, according to his highlight tape, but didn’t have any D1 offers. Still, welcome to the family! Hopefully, he can take off some of the stink that so many UNC fans associate with that name.