This should have been out during the week, but I’m glad it’s now instead, seeing as things kept happening over the course of the week that I would have missed with an earlier publication time. You’ve almost certainly seen the two big pieces of news from this week; that Dawson Garcia and Jalen Washington have decided to commit to UNC as a transfer and high school recruit respectively. We’ll get into that a little more, but that’s not all that’s been going on in the recruiting world, so let’s get to it:

Football:

• It’s not the blue-chip announcement that Carolina fans are waiting for, but it’s a big one nonetheless — Daylen Everette, the cornerback from Norfolk, Virginia who now attends IMG Academy and is ranked as the 40th best player in his class, announced a commitment date of July 17th, which is a week from today. Notably, that date is before Clemson’s huge recruiting event, which will take place at the end of this month, which would seem to indicate that he’s choosing somebody else over them. His Top 5 consist of the Tigers, Georgia, UNC, Florida State, and Oregon, and he’s visited all of those schools except Oregon recently — Chapel Hill twice. A 247 expert for Florida State has put in a Crystal Ball prediction for UNC with medium confidence, and generally I think it’ll come down to UNC and UGA, with the Heels standing a good chance. Everette would be an incredible get for the class.
• You’ll have seen already that Connor Harrell, the quarterback from Alabama, committed to UNC on Independence Day. Harrell’s record is way better than his ranking, which either means he has excellent teammates or is grossly underranked. It’ll be interesting to see how his standing on recruiting sites changes over his senior year, with press presumably allowed back to games in person and his games being on among the biggest stages in high school sports — Alabama 7A level.

Basketball:

• Let’s first talk about Dawson Garcia. A little more than a year ago, UNC had been recruiting Garcia pretty hard, until the surprise commitment of Walker Kessler, at which point the team was going to have 4 bigs and couldn’t really use a scholarship on another. Word was that UNC was doing pretty well with Garcia until that offer was unofficially rendered unavailable, and that relationship doesn’t just go away, so that seems to help explain why he eventually chose UNC over somewhere like Illinois, where playing time and go-to-ness may have been more available (especially if they’re without Kofi Cockburn). Based on the type of big Davis has been recruiting since he got the head job, Garcia is essentially the prototype for what he’s looking for: tall, mobile, and able to stretch the floor without losing the ability to bang around on both ends. Garcia makes the team better and should be an immediate advertisement for what a revamped version of UNC basketball is going to look like.
• Speaking of that type of big, Jalen Washington seems to be next in line after his Friday commitment to the Heels. The 6’9 center from Indiana joins a long line of Tar Heel bigs from the state that includes Tyler Zeller, Eric Montross, and his lead recruiter, Sean May. He’s got a smooth shot, is a skilled straight-line driver, and knows how to use his body, though he does fall back on his face-up jumper a bit more than you’d like to see — an easily coachable problem, and quite understandable given that he’s recovering from a torn ACL.
• With two bigs and a lead guard committed in the class of 2022, the glaring hole for the Heels is at the wing. UNC’s options at the position already included Tyler Nickel and Cam Whitmore, but they’re more hybrid forwards than true wings. Coach Davis has also offered players like Nick Smith and Chris Livingston, but not much has connected the two sides in either case as yet. That leads me to the other recent piece of basketball news, which is an offer to shooting guard Zion Cruz in New Jersey. Cruz is a pure scorer who’s described UNC as “a dream school,” so I’m going to be watching his recruitment, if it gets off the ground, pretty closely. It seems that Auburn may have been the favorite before the Heels got involved, but it’s early yet.