Harrison Barnes commits to North Carolina

• Phog Allen

  This is a killer for Duke! I hate to see Harrison sucked into the Tar Heel nation. UNC gets another wonderful talent but Barnes is more than just a great young basketball player he is the type of person that can be an ambassador for the game...he is in short the exact player Duke used to always get and win national titles with.
  
  It hurts as a KU guy because I love Barnes and KU will have a hole at the 3 spot when Xavier leaves after this season but none of the other finalists feels the sting worse than Duke because Barnes would have put Duke back in its rightful place of the constant top 5 team.
  
  Another thing, I hate that Roy Williams is all the sudden going after every recruit he can get his hands on!!!! For years at KU he had a standing rule that he would not go up against UNC for players and that is one of the main reasons KU avoided recruiting the East Coast for Roy's entire tenure. Now Roy still got a ton of talent at KU and won a lot of games but I can't imagine the teams KU could have had, had Roy recruited the way he is now at KU in the 90s. Obviously it isn't just UNC that is getting these players it is Roy Williams as well and he is getting people from everywhere to come to UNC.
• swamisez

  

  The Carolina gameday program has a special section where there are player bios.
  
  Every single player who isn't from the state of North Carolina has Michael Jordan listed as their favorite basketball player.
  
  I think Roy has an advantage no one in the country has, in that he can get Michael to call Harrison Barnes and say "Come to Carolina". Or he can get Michael to give him tours during his recruiting visit. I hear things like this and wonder how much of this is Roy and how much is MJ and the Carolina tradition?
• slidepiece

  While the Micheal Jordan element can be a major advantage, let's not forget that it doesn't work every time.
  
  Case in point, does anybody else remember Jordan wearing the "Shav Country" t-shirt to promote UNC during their recruitment of Shavlik "My Mom cuts my steak" Randolph? That's one recruitment I'm actually glad that UNC lost out on...LOL!