Barnes is making the UNC/Duke cold war heat up

Harrison Barnes

To all those people that have ever asked me why I love recruiting so much, let me present you to the cold war between North Carolina and Duke over the top player in next year’s class. His name is Harrison Barnes and depending on who you ask, be it fan bases or recruiting analysts, he is going to go from Ames, Iowa to a college in the state of North Carolina that dons blue jerseys. Now, the key is which one is that is might just be the million dollar question for this year’s recruiting. Last night, according to Jim Young (ACC Sports) this war just got a bit more heated (hat tip to THF, who also has a great post about this story).

Basically last night was the last day (for a while) where coaches can talk face to face with recruits. From all sources it seemed that Mike Krzyzewski would be the last coach to talk to the 6’6″/205 lbs. guard/forward combo. However, that was not the case, as Roy Williams got the last visit a couple of hours after Coach K had left the Barnes’ home. With the interesting part being that this is Williams’ second in home visit to him, something that almost never happens. This can be seen in a lot of ways, again, depending on which side of the fense you are sitting on. Duke fans can say this was a last ditch attempt on UNC’s part to get into the driver’s seat in this recruiting war. UNC fans can look at it as Roy Williams once again getting the upper hand on Coach K (and the rest of the nation) when it comes to getting a recruit he wants.

I see it simply as just one more step each program has made towards getting Barnes to come to them. Nothing more or less. I just do not see how this visit would be the make it or break it for the top player in the nation. I would change my mind if the young man from Iowa decided not to take his official visits later on this season, but until that happened I still believe he does not even know where he wants to go to college as of right now. Barnes has already taken his official to North Carolina, as he was on the Chapel Hill campus the weekend that the Alumni game was played.

I will say this about the Barnes’ recruitment, it would be a lot more devasting for Duke losing him to UNC than vice versa. Let’s face it, since Roy Williams has returned to Chapel Hill his counterpart in Durham has lost the recruiting war on a yearly basis, this would just be another piece of evidence towards that theory. And while some of the media believe that Duke getting Barnes would mean the Blue Devils are back in the running for another national championship, I once again do not think that is the case, as Duke needs more than him to win it all.

In the end, if you do not like recruiting than you need to try and keep up with this story, since this could go on for a long time before we know where Harrison Barnes ends up.

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