Breaking News:Hubert Davis excellent deal in transfer portal puts another credit to his uniqueness

The college basketball transfer portal officially opened on Monday, and with it came a flood of entrants — 291, according to 247Sports. Many programs nationwide are intently focused on the portal and urgently trying to recruit entrants this week, but North Carolina is not one of those programs.

UNC head coach Hubert Davis was not tracking portal news on Monday. He spent the day practicing with his team and then reviewing film of potential opponents. The Tar Heels open NCAA Tournament play on Thursday in Charlotte as the No. 1 seed in the West region. His team’s postseason run has all of his attention

“(The portal) opened up today and that’s something that you do have to monitor but that’s it,” Davis said Monday night on his radio show. “Our focus is — and I’ve said this a number of times — what is in front of us and what is real. And that’s our team and how we’re gonna prepare, how we’re going to practice so that we can play our best in the NCAA Tournament. It’s our team. And I think there’s a time for everything and the time right now is to prepare to be the best that we can be for the remainder of the season and so that’s where our focus is on.

It’s just weird — it’s not right. There’s no way that the transfer portal should be going on right now…

In Davis’ three offseasons in Chapel Hill, he’s added nine total portal players, with commitment dates ranging from March 27 to July 8. Justin McKoy, Brady Manek and Dawson Garcia was the incoming portal class in year one. Pete Nance was the only portal commitment in year two. And the five-man group of Paxson Wojcik, Jae’Lyn Withers, Cormac Ryan, Harrison Ingram, and James Okonkwo comprised year three.

That has been Davis’ philosophy since taking over at UNC in 2021: first the season, then the portal. This year’s portal window runs for 45 days, ending on May 1. That’s the timeframe during which players can enter (though graduate transfers are not confined to that window), but those players can commit at any point after entering.