No Movement by UNC Basketball Star Before Draft Withdrawal Deadline

Harrison Ingram kept his eligibility intact to leave his options open, but he ultimately remained in the NBA Draft.

UNC basketball forward Harrison Ingram / Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

The NCAA-imposed deadline to withdraw as an early NBA Draft entrant and maintain one's college eligibility was 11:59 p.m. ET Wednesday. Boatloads of players pulled out in the final days, and a few players cut it close in the final hours. UNC basketball product Harrison Ingram was not one of those players, which came as no surprise but, in essence, moved his pro status from 99 to 100 percent.

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At the NBA Draft Combine a few weeks ago, Ingram noted the only way he would consider coming back to UNC for his senior campaign is if he suffered an injury or some other setback that significantly dinged his NBA Draft stock.

That didn't happen. Instead, he seems to have recently jumped a smidge from being a projected mid-second-rounder to going early in the second round, perhaps even sneaking into the first round.

In his one year with the Tar Heels following two seasons at Stanford, the 6-foot-7 Dallas native played in all 37 games for a UNC basketball team that finished atop the ACC regular season standings. A full-time starter who stretched the floor with a 38.5 shooting percentage from downtown, he averaged 12.2 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 1.4 steals.

Whether late first round or somewhere in the second on June 26-27, Harrison Ingram looks like a lock to become the first Tar Heel to get drafted, not counting anyone who transferred out of the program (i.e., Walker Kessler), since Day'Ron Sharpe came off the board No. 29 overall to the Phoenix Suns (traded to the Brooklyn Nets a week later) back in 2021.

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