As the North Carolina football program was taking the field in Winston-Salem on Friday night, the Tar Heels’ basketball team got some good news from a 5-star prospect in the class of 2021.
Paulo Banchero, a 6-foot-9, 235-pound power forward at O’Dea High School in Seattle, Washington named North Carolina to a list of nine finalists that includes Baylor, Duke, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Kentucky, Memphis, Tennessee and Washington. Banchero broke the news via his personal twitter account.
Banchero, who had initially considered reclassifying up a year before deciding to remain in his natural class, passed up on scholarship offers from Alabama, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, USC and Vanderbilt.