The 2012 recruiting class for Roy Williams and North Carolina was an important one. Following the departures of Harrison Barnes, Kendall Marshall, Tyler Zeller, and John Henson, UNC needed to reload to build the future of the program.
They did land the No. 6 overall class with four commitments headlined by Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson. But that class could have been even better if it were not for a spontaneous recruiting trip to Stillwater, Oklahoma for Marcus Smart.
The five-star guard had a significant climb in the recruiting rankings, ending as the No. 13 overall player in the 247Sports rankings. But he almost ended up at North Carolina if it wasn’t for his close friend Phil Forte and that trip to Stillwater.
While on Theo Pinson’s “Run Your Race” podcast, Smart told the story of how he was going to commit to UNC but decided to commit to Oklahoma State instead:
“I was going to North Carolina,” Smart said.” Roy Williams was on his way to a meeting, to a house call. I’ll never forget this s***. He was on the way. It’s Friday, it’s Thursday, Friday. Sunday he’s coming for a house visit. Phil [Forte] said on a Friday ‘Hey come to Oklahoma State with me for my official visit. I don’t want to go by myself. . . ‘ I’m like ‘Hell naw. And them I’m like, F*** it, it’s not that far. So we go, and I go and I’m like ‘Bro, I have to be back.I have Roy coming, I gotta get back. I cant miss that.’ He’s like ‘Cool, you will be back.’
“We get there, instantly off rip coaches didn’t say anything to me, Travis Ford didn’t really say anything to me. Uh, Butch Pierre didn’t really, they said ‘What’s up’ but they didn’t really try to recruit me. And they were like ‘We understand, we know you have Roy Williams coming.’ Everybody knows about that. They take Phil off and they walk off, while all this was going on, they were the first school to ever do that. Every other school that called or asked about recruitment was like ‘If we get Phil, will you come?’ And I’m like ‘To be honest, nah. Cause we’re not on that. We are trying to go our separate ways.’
So everything still sounds fine, right? Oklahoma State knew that Smart wasn’t there for a recruiting visit and that they didn’t plan to be a package deal. So what happened? Well, it sounded like a split-second decision.
Underrated clip from Theo Pinson’s latest pod with Marcus Smart (2012 class), who says he was going to #UNC before ultimately choosing OK State.
Here, he explains how it all went down (and gets flamed by Theo in the process). pic.twitter.com/y2fVhpx8fx
— Jacob Turner (@JacobTurnerTHI) June 26, 2024
“And after that meeting, me and Phil talked and he was like ‘Man, we’ve been doing this since the third grade. We might as well finish this s*** off the right way.’ Then I’m like ‘S***, you right. Why not? I got the best shooter in the country and you have one of the best playmakers, so why not?”
Smart goes on to say that instantly Forte committed to the Cowboys, giving the coaching staff his verbal with Smart doing the same. That gave Oklahoma State a package deal and two backcourt standouts.
For North Carolina, they missed out on Smart and one of the top players in the class that could have helped the backcourt. It’s another ‘what if’ story on recruiting from a player’s side that Pinson was able to share.
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