North Carolina recruiting target Jasper Johnson is set to make his decision in a few days, ending his recruitment. The shooting guard has a total of 22 offers in his recruitment and is down to a final five.
But this recruitment has really been between three teams for a few months now. Going into decision day, the top three teams in the recruitment are Kentucky, Alabama, and North Carolina, battling it out to land him.
And it feels like a blue blood program is the clear favorite for Thursday’s decision.
Rivals reporter Rob Cassidy ranked the contenders to land Johnson, and at the top of the list he has the Kentucky Wildcats as the favorites. Behind them, he has Alabama and then in third North Carolina:
The last team in Johnson’s final six with any semblance of realistic chance to land the five-star guard, North Carolina was once seen as a serious threat to extract Johnson from the Bluegrass State. Head coach Hubert Davis and staff got Johnson on campus for multiple visits and hosted him for an official on Feb. 4 for a rivalry game with Duke.
The Tar Heels are not likely to be the pick, but it’s impossible to rule them out completely.
Johnson has been a priority recruit for North Carolina in this process but it’s tough to tell if they were ever really in the lead at any point. It was Alabama that was rumored to be the favorite but recently, Kentucky has pulled ahead and it helped that four-star center Malachi Moreno was actively recruiting him.
It’s unlikely that UNC will land Johnson and now, they turn their attention to other targets as they seek their first commitment in the 2025 class still.
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