North Carolina Tar Heels standout freshman Ian Jackson is taking his talents elsewhere for the 2025-26 season, or at least so it seems now. On Monday, Pete Nakos of On3 reported that the former 5-star recruit who just completed his freshman season with UNC basketball is now entering the transfer portal, a move that leaves the Tar Heels in disarray.
Jackson played a reserve role for the majority of his freshman season but proved to be a spark for a UNC roster that often lacked that. He averaged 11.9 points and 2.7 rebounds per game while shooting 39.5% from deep on the season in just 23.8 minutes per game.
Losing Jackson now leaves North Carolina even more between a rock and a hard place, especially given that they were already beginning to fight an uphill battle in the transfer portal.
Ian Jackson leaves UNC, Hubert Davis high-and-dry entering transfer portal
It's certainly worth noting that entering the transfer portal isn't a guarantee that the Tar Heels are going to lose Jackson. Just last offseason, we saw Seth Trimble flirt with the portal only for North Carolina to buckle down and convince him to stay in Chapel Hill. So there's still at least a semblance of a chance that UNC could work something out in that capacity.
At the same time, Jackson leaving would put UNC basketball in a world of hurt, specifically when it comes to Davis and his job security — or at least the fan sentiment about his job security. Losing Elliot Cadeau and Jalen Washington may have been welcomed by large swaths of the fan base but, at the same time, those become holes that Davis needed to fill, along with bringing in 5-star freshman Caleb Wilson. That also doesn't consider losing RJ Davis and and Jae'Lyn Withers to graduation.
Landing Justin Powell out of West Virginia and Henri Veesaar from Arizona helps with that but they likely still needed even more after that in the transfer portal to level up closer to fan expectations. Jackson, however, was figured to be a big part of that, potentially moving into being the primary scorer and central figure in the offense overall. Without him, that's a ton of offensive production that needs to be replaced — so much so that it's hard to reasonably understand how they'd be able to do that.
Again, this isn't the end, but it portends some rough waters for the Tar Heels and Hubert Davis ahead. Jackson leaving for anything other than the NBA Draft is a devastating blow and perhaps an indictment on the current state of the program. That, in turn, is an indictment of Davis. Maybe things can turn around with Jackson and mayber there's another big splash UNC can make in the portal, but this is the last news any fan would want to hear.