The moment Harrison Barnes informed the world he was going to play basketball at North Carolina was dramatic to UNC fans, something they still occasionally talk about.

Barnes made the announcement in 2009 on Skype, something many people had never heard of at the time, and he chose the Tar Heels over Duke. He was well known before arriving in Chapel Hill and remained so during his two seasons and since as a solid NBA player.

The Ames, IA, native struggled a bit early during his Carolina career but eventually got going and did more than enough there and afterward to earn this spot as Iowa’s representative.

As a freshman, Barnes was named ACC Rookie of the Year and second-team All-ACC in 2011 and as a sophomore he was first-team All-ACC. He was part of two UNC teams that won the ACC regular season title each with 14-2 records and that also advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

The 2011 Tar Heels fell to Kentucky in the regional final in Newark, NJ, and the following year an injury-plagued UNC club lost to Kansas in the regional final in St. Louis.

Barnes and the Heels went 61-14 overall and 28-4 in his two seasons in Chapel Hill.

“We were a tight-knit unit,” Barnes told TheSmokingCuban.com in 2017. “This last team that won it (2017), we were able to see how close they were. I feel like we were very similar and close. I felt like we had a good shot to win it. Obviously, Kendall (Marshall) gets hurt and we were unable to make it to the Final Four. If he was out there, we would have won it all.”

Barnes’ best individual game came in the ACC Tournament semifinals when he scored 40 points in an overtime victory over Clemson, which was a record for points by a freshman in an ACC Tournament game. Barnes was 12-for-17 from the field including 6-for-8 from 3-point range, and 10-for-11 from the free throw line. He also grabbed eight rebounds that afternoon.

“Lennie Rosenbluth, whose jersey’s in the rafters retired, had 45; Charlie Scott, whose jersey’s in the rafters twice, had 41,” UNC coach Roy Williams said after that performance…

“I remember one of those games when I was a student when Charlie made his last nine shots to win the ACC Tournament final. Harrison’s in big-time company there.”

Barnes played 75 games in two seasons with the Tar Heels scoring 1,226 points, grabbing 414 rebounds, handing out 96 assists, registering 68 steals and 29 blocked shots on UNC teams that reached consecutive regional finals before losing. Barnes averaged 16.3 points for his Carolina career shooting 43 percent from the field, including 34.9 percent from 3-point range.

He was the seventh overall pick by the Golden State Warriors in 2012 NBA Draft.

In seven NBA seasons, Barnes has averaged 13.6 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. He averaged 19.2 points and 18.9 in 2017 and 2018, respectively, for the Dallas Mavericks.

He won an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2015. He started all 21 Warriors games during that playoff run averaging 10.6 pints and 5.1 rebounds per contest. In 64 NBA playoff games, Barnes has averaged 10.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per contest.

Barnes currently plays for the Sacramento Kings, and while he spent just two years at UNC, it’s a big part of who Barnes is today. It was also his destiny to play there, he wrote in a 2015 series titled “The Size Of The Moment” for ThePlayersTribune.com:

“Becoming a Tar Heel seemed like destiny in some senses. My mother chose ‘Jordan’ as my middle name, as a nod to her favorite basketball player. And growing up in Iowa, it was ordained from the time that I was born that I was to bleed Carolina blue and show respect for the storied program that provided the foundation for my namesake.

“I remember throughout middle school and high school how excited my mom, sister and I would be when a UNC game was on TV. It was required viewing.”