First 2026 UNC Basketball Target Revealed by Insider

One insider has already predicted UNC basketball to land Cole Cloer

At Orange High School in Hillsborough, N.C., four-star recruit Cole Cloer’s proximity to Chapel Hill — roughly 20 miles from his school’s gym to the Dean E. Smith Center — made it easy for him to visit the UNC basketball staff, and vice versa. Given that convenience and his rising stock, it wasn’t much of a shock when he became the first 2026 prospect to earn an offer from the Tar Heels last week.

Cloer, ranked No. 25 overall on the 247Sports 2026 Composite and still the only rising high school junior on UNC’s wishlist, will be about 40 miles farther away from the Tar Heels next season, though.

On Thursday afternoon, the 6-foot-7, 180-pound forward, a top-shelf leaper and deft bucket-getter who projects as a potentially potent stretch-four talent at the college level, announced his transfer from Orange to Caldwell Academy in Greensboro, making the move from a public high school to a private prep academy.

As the 2026 cycle’s No. 1 player among North Carolina preps, almost half of Cloer’s offer sheet consists of in-state programs. NC State, Wake Forest, High Point, and Appalachian State are the others, per 247Sports.

While it’s still early in the Cole Cloer sweepstakes, as he figures to attract more high-major suitors in the coming months, it’s worth noting that On3’s Jamie Shaw has already entered a pick into the Recruiting Prediction Machine.

Shaw’s prediction, the only one in existence for Cloer between the major recruiting sites, shows UNC basketball head coach Hubert Davis as the frontrunner to ultimately prevail, albeit with only a “60 percent” confidence level.