The North Carolina coaching staff made its way to New Jersey Wednesday night to take in one of the top guards in the 2026 class.

The Tar Heel and Syracuse coaches were in attendance as Deron Rippey Jr. piled up 30 points and 10 rebounds for Blair Academy as they defeated The Academy of the New Church.

“He played great, " his father Deron Sr. told Tar Heel Illustrated the next day. "Coach Marcus Paige, the assistant coach was there. Alex Klein, the general manager at Syracuse was there along with some other coaches that I wasn’t aware of. He shot the ball well. I think he went four for five or four for six from three. He had a lot of nice assists. He did a great job of running the team, and showing he’s a point guard, and he wanted to help his team, and then we had some other players step up. Ron-Ron played great helping lead the way.”

Blair Academy is six games into the season, and Rippey is already one of the hottest names in the country this winter. He is averaging 20 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals for the 5-1 Bucs. He also carries a perfect 4.0 GPA in the classroom.

Deron has been doing a great job of checking off some boxes he wanted to improve on, "Mr. Rippey explained to THI. "One was leadership at the point guard position. He’s getting better at the point position to lead his team back to the conference championship and the state championship. He’s been improving with his jump shot which lots of scouts and college coaches have noticed. Of course the little intangibles of the game that are going to allow him to become a better player: passing, IQ, defense, and celebrating other teammates success too. Those are things we are big on at Blair Academy.”

Rippey has offers from the likes of Creighton, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Kansas, LSU, Maryland, Michigan, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Rutgers, Seton Hall, SMU, St. John's, Stanford, Syracuse, TCU, Texas A&M, Villanova, Wake Forest, Washington, and West Virginia.