How does North Carolina’s top-three ranked 2020 class stack up against the top classes of the Roy Williams' era? Plus a Midwest wing racking up offers and the latest FutureCast pick from national analyst Eric Bossi in today’s edition of the Three-Point Play.
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2020 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position
2021 Rankings: Rivals150 | Position
2022 Rankings: Top 75
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1. COMPARING UNC’S 2020 CLASS TO ROY WILLIAMS' TOP CLASSES
On Monday, Roy Williams and North Carolina landed four-star shooting guard Kerwin Walton to round out a stellar six-man class and strengthen its hold on No. 3 in the 2020 team rankings.
In addition to Walton, the Heels have landed five-stars Day’Ron Sharpe, Caleb Love and Walker Kessler plus four-stars R.J. Davis and Puff Johnson. So, how does this group stack up with the best classes of the Williams era?
Obviously, this can be a bit subjective and we won’t know how good this class truly is until a few years down the road. But, here’s what we do know. It is the eighth time overall (and third in a row) since coming to Chapel Hill for the 2003-04 season that Williams has landed a class with multiple five-star prospects. The six-man class is also the largest class that the Heels have signed since 2006. Coincidentally that class is the only other class under Williams to feature three five-star prospects – Brandan Wright, Wayne Ellington and Tywon Lawson.
As far as I’m concerned, that 2006 class has to be considered the best so far under Williams. Wright was off to the NBA quickly but the core of the class – Ellington, Lawson and four-star Deon Thompson – played large in the Heels' 2008 Final Four appearance and Williams' second national title in 2009. They also won three-straight ACC regular season titles (with some help from 2005 five-star Tyler Hansbrough) between 2007 and 2009. I don’t think there’s any argument against them.
Beyond them it gets tricky and depends on what you value. Myself, winning factors in heavily. So while the 2014 class of five-stars Theo Pinson and Justin Jackson along with four-star McDonald’s All-American Joel Berry only featured three players, their success is tough to argue with. They made the Final Four in 2016 and won a title in 2017 to go along with ACC titles in ’16 and ’17.
After them, I’d go ahead and slot in this year’s group. If previous classes similar to theirs are any indication of what to expect, we may be looking at Williams winning at least one more championship to cap off his Hall of Fame career.
MORE UNC: Corey Evans' Twitter Tuesday
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2. MIDWEST WING RACKING UP OFFERS
Junior wing Isaiah Barnes has been one of the hottest prospects in the Midwest as he continues to rack up high-level offers.
A 6-foot-7 scorer who played his last two seasons at Oak Park (Ill.) and River Forest, Barnes will be transferring for his senior year but that hasn’t hurt his recruitment at all. Home-state Illinois was the first high major school to offer last June. In the last month, though, Barnes has added offers from Georgia, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Saint Louis, TCU and Wisconsin.
I’ve now watched a few games from Barnes' junior season on film and a few things stand out. One, he’s still a bit inconsistent but two, he has gotten much stronger physically and become a more dynamic athlete since last summer. He handles the ball pretty well, has some feel as a passer and is a streaky shooter with confidence who can put up points quickly when he gets on a heater from deep.
Whether we’ll get to see him play any summer basketball is still to be determined, but Mike Mullins, the program director and coach of Barnes' Illinois Wolves team, is high on him.
“Isaiah has grown a couple inches to 6-foot-7 and has matured physically as well as adding weight and strength simultaneously,” said Mullins. “His athleticism increased as a result of that physical development. He has put extra time on his skills and the combination of all those factors has excited the schools previously recruiting him as well as adding new interest.”
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3. MY LATEST FUTURECAST
If we are being frank, I’m probably a little bit late to the party on this but with my latest FutureCast I’m predicting that Florida ends up quite happy in the near future.
One of the most intriguing prospects in the class of 2021 is 6-foot-5 sniper Kowacie Reeves of Macon (Ga.) Westside. He’s still quite thin, but he’s got tremendous size for a two-guard, deep range, sneaky athleticism and a huge ceiling for expanding his game and getting better.
Mike White and the Gators have been working this one aggressively for a while now and have had Reeves on campus multiple times. From the sounds of it, Reeves could be nearing a decision sooner than later and if that’s the case then I feel pretty good about predicting Reeves ends up in Gainesville as the first member of Florida’s 2021 recruiting class.
