Asa Montgomery’s recruitment has moved fast, and North Carolina is right in the middle of it.
The Class of 2027 forward, listed by 247Sports as the No. 42 overall prospect, has locked in eight official visits, and Chapel Hill is one of the stops on his schedule. UNC will host Montgomery on Sept. 25, making the Tar Heels the fifth program he’ll see and the first of three ACC schools on the list.
Montgomery’s visit slate is packed from late August through the end of October: LSU on Aug. 28, Florida on Sept.
4, UConn on Sept. 11, Providence on Sept.
18, North Carolina on Sept. 25, Duke on Oct.
2, Arizona on Oct. 16 and Louisville on Oct. 30.
The 6-foot-7 forward’s exact standing varies depending on the outlet, but the buzz around him is unmistakable. He’s clearly trending upward after an excellent summer on the AAU circuit, which is what put him on Michael Malone and UNC’s radar about a month ago.
For a closer look at what Montgomery offers, 247Sports Director of Scouting Adam Finkelstein laid out just how different his summer looked depending on the setting:
"We saw Montgomery in two very different contexts this summer. In the EYCL, he was a volume scorer with the ultimate green light.
Everything went through him and he put up a whopping 27.9 points on 54/34/76 shooting along with 10.2 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3.3 stocks (1.4 steals and 1.9 blocks) per game. With USA Basketball though, he bought into being a role playing four.
He provided energy, offensive rebounding, cutting, defensive versatility, and playmaking within their full-court pressure, even though he was surprisingly reluctant to shoot at times."
UNC’s presence in Montgomery’s recruitment also fits the way Malone has approached the job. The message has been clear: North Carolina is going to chase the best players it can get, and it isn’t planning to play second fiddle to anyone on the trail.
Not every target in a class has to be a headline-grabbing five-star to matter. Sometimes the players who are hardest to spot early end up becoming the ones who shape a class the most.
Montgomery has the look of one of those prospects, and the Tar Heels have done enough to earn a visit after only jumping into the race a month ago. That alone says plenty about how hard UNC is working to stay involved with the rising names in the 2027 class.
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