Harrison Barnes commits to UNC; breaks Coach K, Duke fans’ hearts
Harrison Barnes, the No. 1 senior recruit in the nation and the human form of Fort Knox, signed a letter of intent to attend North Carolina at a news conference Friday.
“Coach Roy Williams?” Barnes said via Skype in his high school auditorium, breaking the extreme tension that had been building for weeks.
Barnes teased the crowd by saying a statement about each of his six finalists and seemed to give the most respectful comments about Duke. He then said he would be attending … the coach he calls on Skype.
Williams answered the call with the entire team with a huge smile on his face.
“I’m so privileged to go play for Coach Williams,” Barnes said. “Coach Williams found out when everyone else found out … when I called him on Skype.”
His decision ended months of speculation and a fascinating recruitment, including fans tracking Williams and Mike Krzyzewski’s planes, more message board inside sources than the entire population of Ames, Iowa, waitergate (don’t ask), and Barnes’ apparel for the past six months.
Duke, Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma and UCLA were his other finalists.
Barnes kept his decision from leaking out to the public in an era of predictability in the recruiting world yet sported Jordan clothes from head to toe at school Friday.
“About Tuesday or Wednesday I made my final decision,” Barnes said. “We wanted to do something big, and we thought this would be the most classy way to do it.”
The 6-foot-7 wing player will join five-star recruits Kendall Marshall and Reggie Bullock and likely will make the Heels the preseason No. 1 team in 2010.
4 Comments
Go Roy!!! You’re the man.
— Gene D Lanier 13 November 2009
This kid is a POS and he and Roid deserve each other. “No one knew till I skyped them.”
You honestly think Self, Howland, Capel and Coach K were all sitting around waiting for this little arrogant POS to call?
He and roid cooked this up weeks ago, so HB please drop the BS you little dbag.
— Roy Huckleberry 14 November 2009
Roy, It’s obvious you aren’t a UNC fan. Most UNC fans have more class than to make a posting like that. I can only hope that you aren’t a Duke fan, either. Most of their fans possess more class than this. No matter who you are a fan of, it is an embarassment to that university to have you behaving so juvenile on your posting. If that’s the way the kid wanted to do it, so be it. I personally thought the young man showed alot of class given the attention he had to handle. And, yes, I am a UNC fan. Go Heels!
— Cameron Coburn 14 November 2009
Roy Huckleberry’s comments were a bit over the top, but if the rumors in regards to a commitment one month ago are true then it was an extremely underhanded move. Kyrie Irving gets a ton of flak for making courtesy visits to schools with family friends and Barnes is classy despite stringing along schools that felt they had a real shot at him?
— Huckleberry Coke 14 November 2009