Joel Berry: The Next Great Tarheel Point Guard

Recent trends at the University of Kentucky have left rival schools — both big and small — in dismay after every recruiting season winds down. In fact, according to ESPN, the fans of Big Blue Nation have welcomed college basketball’s top recruiting class in four of the last five years.

Although those highly-touted classes have only produced one National Championship for Kentucky in 2012, those Wildcats have dominated the NBA Draft, including eight total lottery picks and two 1st-overall draft picks (John Wall, Anthony Davis) in the last five years. We actually just witnessed Kentucky’s recruiting dominance last week when Meanstreets’ Tyler Ulis committed only after receiving an offer from them less than a month ago.

That kind of tantalizing draw has created a stronghold on the nation’s basketball youth and it runs through Lexington, Ky.

Until now, that is.

With a deep, rich history of winning tradition and a slew high draft picks of their own, North Carolina is looking to debunk Kentucky’s latest grip on recruitment. Their target year: 2014.

Already, Roy Williams and the Tar Heels have locked up three players ranked within the top-15, according to the 2014 ESPN Top 100 database. Those players all sprout from the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League: Joel Berry, Justin Jackson and Theo Pinson.

Jackson, an EYBL vet from Tomball, Texas, played for Houston Hoops. A smooth small forward with a refined mid-range game, Jackson averaged 17.3 ppg on nearly 60 percent shooting from the field to go along with 5.6 rpg. Pinson, who played for CP3 All-Stars, is Jackson’s perfect counterpart on the wing. He’s a slick baseline slasher on offense but excels greatly on the other side of the ball, where he can easily defend three different positions. He led CP3 All-Stars in steals (2.3) and blocks (1.3) per game.

Those two alone, ranked 8th and 13th respectively on the ESPN Top 100, creates a class worthy of praise and a sublime ranking. But adding a champ like Berry is why the 2014 Tar Heel commitments are atop the class rankings right now.

“It was always my dream school to be there,” Berry, who helped lead Each 1 Teach 1 to a Peach Jam championship this summer, said. “Me and my mom always sat down and watched them. We watched Raymond Felton, Ty Lawson and just love how they play. I even have comparisons to those two guys.”

As excited as Berry is to get there, fans should be as excited for his arrival and see those comparisons in action. That mutual feeling makes his commitment very important but there’s a history lesson that must be told of UNC point guards.

Just like John Calipari at Kentucky, Williams demands a lot from his point guards. They need to be able to hold their own on both sides of the ball and become vocal leaders on the court. There have been some great point guards in Chapel Hill within the last 10 years. Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson have both transitioned their great college days into solid NBA careers. The Phoenix Suns took Kendall Marshall, as great as he was for the Tar Heels, 13th overall in 2012, proving he has the talent to be a sound point guard option one day at the NBA level.

Beyond those recent guards who’ve donned the distinguished Baby Blue, North Carolina has a deep history of strong point guards. Larry Brown played from 1960-1963 and is currently sixth in school history with 5.2 assists per game. Jimmy Black played alongside Michael Jordan and James Worthy on the 1981-1982 team and finished ninth in total assists. Phil Ford was one of the best in Tar Heel history, breaking records for total assists (753) and points scored (2,290) by the time he graduated. Kenny “The Jet” Smith played under Dean Smith from 1983-1987 and amassed Ford’s assist record by amounting 768 of his own. Then Ed Cota came around from 1996-2000 and shattered Smith’s record with 1,030 assists of his own and also stands fifth in total steals with 192.

The list of over acheivers at the point guard spot at Chapel Hill goes on and on but many of them have one thing in common. Aside from Felton, Lawson and Smith, many failed to replicate their college games at the professional level and fizzled out of relevancy because of it. Berry is determined to not let that happen to him by putting in the work needed.

“I’ve had battles and I’ve lost battles before but all I did was go back and work on it and it’s made me a better player,” Berry said, in response to playing with the EYBL competition for the last three years.

Where Berry excels past other point guards at this stage is on defense. He’s a physical player and plays that way on both ends of the court. A low-center of gravity and active feet equals a swarming defender at the top of the key, basically handicapping the offense from the get-go. That individual effort helped Berry average 2.1 spg, which also led to E1T1’s second rated defense in offensive points per game (53.17).

On offense, Berry’s overwhelmingly physical style is important at the top of the key, running the offense. He has elite court vision and basketball IQ, which helps him stay ahead of the defender and command the offense with ease. Berry’s veteran leadership and scoring canny helped him score 14.5 ppg and excel from deep, shooting 43 percent from three-point territory. Although an efficient scorer, Berry looks to set up teammates off of his own dribble penetration, as shown by his 5.3 apg this EYBL season.

“He makes the game so much easier for everyone else,” Grayson Allen, teammate from Each 1 Teach 1, said. “Because he’s a scoring point guard, he draws a lot of attention from the defense and sets others up for easy buckets.”

Allen, already a 2014 commit to Duke University, added that he’s ready to face off against his former EYBL teammate when college becomes reality.

“I can’t wait to get to college and to be a part of the greatest rivalry in college. It will be crazy.”

In Berry, UNC has a young man with all the tools to thrive at the collegiate level and take this currently top-rated 2014 class to the next level. Furthermore, Berry currently possesses the upside to reach the top level one day, given all the early comparisons of UNC greats before him.

The Tar Heel faithful should already be proud of their accomplishment of debunking Kentucky so far, and can certainly feel confident in Berry’s ability to put together a terrific career at Chapel Hill. There will also be some hoping that he can overcome the speed bump his elders have run into before him. But according to him, there shouldn’t be any problems.