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Alabama Looks to Defeat UNC Basketball in Five-Star Recruiting Race

One top insider suggests a prime UNC basketball target may be leaning toward the SEC team that crushed Tar Heel dreams back in March.

Matt Giles

UNC basketball head coach Hubert Davis vs. Alabama
UNC basketball head coach Hubert Davis vs. Alabama / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
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Alabama ended the 2023-24 UNC basketball campaign in the Sweet 16. Now, Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats has eyes on delivering a knockout blow to the Tar Heels' Hubert Davis and the other remaining suitors for Link Academy (Mo.) rising senior Jasper Johnson, a 6-foot-4, 175-pound guard sitting at No. 10 overall on the 247Sports 2025 Composite.

During this week's episode of The 247Sports College Basketball Show, national recruiting insider Travis Branham assessed where things stand in what appears to be a two- or three-horse race down the homestretch of the electrifying five-star's high-profile recruitment.

And while the 247Sports Crystal Ball for Johnson remains empty, Branham hints at the Tide's edge over UNC and another blueblood in home-state hopeful Kentucky.

"This recruitment is becoming a battle between North Carolina and Alabama," Branham explained on the show. "Kentucky remains involved. Obviously, he is from just 30 minutes down the street in Woodford County, where he was born and raised, and again, he took an unofficial visit there recently.

"But he also came off an official visit to Alabama [and an unofficial to UNC]. And based on what I am hearing, it seems like Alabama could be the team to beat. But North Carolina is very, very deeply involved; it seems there's heavy mutual interest and that Jasper thinks very fondly of the Tar Heels. And this will be one battle that we will be monitoring in the weeks ahead."

Johnson, who first checked out the Tar Heels on an official visit in early February about five months after landing on what has expanded into a 17-deep 2025 UNC basketball offer sheet, is one of six guards in his class on Hubert Davis' remaining wishlist.

But the three recent additions to that list of backcourt targets — four-stars Braylon Mullins, Derek Dixon, and Acaden Lewis — could indicate that Davis and his crew have lost confidence in their other perimeter pursuits. Perhaps that includes their chase for Jasper Johnson, despite the 18-year-old coveted phenom's recent follow-up visit and admitted appreciation for all things Tar Heel as a kid.

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Matt Giles

MATT GILES

Matt Giles is the editor and publisher of FanNation's Blue Devil Country and All Tar Heels, covering the Duke Blue Devils and UNC Tar Heels on SI.com.

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