COLUMBIA — Seventh Woods reached inside a brown paper shopping bag, pulled out a blue and white cap — and delivered to South Carolina one of the toughest defeats of a basketball season which hasn’t even started yet.
The state’s best high school player on Wednesday chose North Carolina over the Gamecocks in front of a gym full of classmates and media at Hammond School. The lure of a national power and head coach Roy Williams, whom Woods said had recruited him since eighth grade, trumped the promise of Frank Martin’s up-and-coming program at USC.
“It was a tough decision,” Woods, a 6-2 guard, said after signing his Letter of Intent on the opening day of the fall signing period.