RICHMOND, Va. -- Not only does North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams have Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green all coming back next season. He also has a pretty stout recruiting class on the way in.

Ed Davis, a 6-foot-8 power forward out of Richmond, Va., was the 13th highest rated prospect in the country coming out of high school, and he could have gone to school anywhere. Many coaches tried selling him on the chance to play early, but one coach stood out above the others.

“Other schools, they were telling me I’m going to get 30 minutes a game, I’m going to get this, get that, like with my playing time and how I fit in, but Coach Williams never told me I was going to get anything. Roy told me everything that I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear.”

Davis led Benedictine High School to back-to-back state championships the past two years, and in a few short months, he will look to deliver another title to Tobacco Road’s version of “Title Town.”

During those two seasons at the top, Benedictine basketball coach Sean McAloon said he learned something about his star forward’s personality.

“He’s not one of those kids who’s going to come over and block your shot, scream in your face, you know, chest bump or anything of that nature… unless maybe you’ve provoked him,” McAloon said. “If you’ve provoked him, I’ve seen kids provoke him now in the last two years and when you do, it’s scary to watch him take it to that other level. I think that’s what Coach Williams will probably get out of him more than I did.”

North Carolina got within one win of playing for the NCAA national championship last season, falling to eventual champion Kansas in the Final Four. With Davis now in the fold and enough talent coming back to even embarrass Ol’ Roy, the Tar Heels only have one goal next season, and that’s something Davis is prepared for.

“I’m just looking forward to winning a national championship; that’s my goal, to win a national championship every year that I’m there,” Davis said. “It’s all about staying in the league, not seeing how fast you can get there, so I want to go when I’m best prepared if it’s one year or if it’s four years.”

Playing four years of ball at North Carolina doesn’t entice just Davis; it sounds pretty good to his mom, Angela Jones, as well.

“I’m just grateful that he got a chance to get a full ride to UNC,” she said. “I mean, to me you can’t get better than that. They’ll go farther than they did last season, because they have Ed.”

“He’s like a diamond, you know what I mean?” McAloon added. “He’s not fully cut yet but when he does, it’ll shine in all directions. The sky’s the limit for Ed… and for Carolina, too.”