Report: North Carolina pursuing Pete Nance after NBA Draft withdrawal

North Carolina basketball has continued its pursuit of Northwestern transfer Pete Nance after he withdrew from the 2022 NBA Draft on Wednesday, according to The Field of 68’s Riley Davis. The Tar Heels previously made contact before the combine in May and retain one open roster spot.

Pete Nance, who appears to be among North Carolina’s top priorities now, ranks No. 10 in the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings and No. 2 among available players. The 6-foot-10 senior forward would fill an immediate need after the departure of NCAA Tournament star Brady Manek from the starting lineup.

In four seasons at Northwestern, Nance started 74 of 107 appearances while averaging 9.6 points and 5.4 rebounds. In 2021-22, he set a career high with 14.6 points per game on 45.2 percent shooting from the 3-point line. He is a former four-star recruit who ranked No. 58 overall in the 2018 On3 Consensus. He also ranked as the No. 16 small forward and No. 1 player in his home state of Ohio.

North Carolina head coach already brings back the majority of his Final Four roster, retaining starters Caleb Love, RJ Davis, Leaky Black and Armando Bacot along with several key bench players.

Transfer portal background information 

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.