The Adidas 3SSB Palmetto Road Championships began Tuesday, and will run through Sunday in Rock Hill, SC.
The Adidas side is not short on talent. The circuit features five of the top eleven players in the 2025 class as ranked by Rivals. There are also many more included in the Rivals 150, but most importantly for North Carolina fans there are a few present who have Tar Heel offers.
Koa Peat, Nate Ament, Malachi Moreno, and Braylon Mullins can all say they have UNC scholarship invites plus heavy interest from Hubert Davis and his staff. Nikola Bundalo is also in that group, but the Wildcat Select star is competing instead for the Serbian 18U National Team at the EuroBasket Championships.
Three of the four players opened on Tuesday. Here is a closer look at what happened, and where things stand for each player going into the big week of basketball.
North Carolina has not been recruiting a player in the 2025 class harder than Koa Peat. Hubert Davis offered all the way back in April 2023, and he has had his foot on the gas pedal ever since. Peat took an official visit to Chapel Hill in November, and made the cut of ten finalists in January.
Peat was named 1st Team All-Adidas 3SSB for the spring on Tuesday. The five-star power forward averaged 20.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 blocks, and 1.0 steals per game. He was also a huge piece of the gold medal winning United States U18 National Team who just returned from Turkey. Peat's Compton Magic 17U squad will begin play on Wednesday.
With the loss by Indiana Elite, Team Loaded out of Virginia assumed the role as the only remaining unbeaten team in the Adidas 17U division. "Loaded" is an appropriate description, because this team has an absolutely stacked roster.
Nate Ament is just one of a starting lineup full of high major talent. However, the nation's 10th-ranked rising senior is the only one on the team with a Tar Heel offer. That invite as several others came immediately after the live period in late May. Hubert Davis and Sean May watched him at the Adidas event in Bryan, Texas.
Ament was also named 1st Team All-3SSB for the spring. He averaged 15.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.0 blocks per game as Team Loaded ran up a perfect 13-0 record.
They opened the tournament in Rock Hill Tuesday with a 72-66 win against Jalen Green Elite. Ament played like a top-ten talent. He went for 26 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 blocks.
Indiana Elite is widely considered to be one of the best three to four teams that the AAU world has to offer. Malachi Moreno and Braylon Mullins had a lot to do with that. Moreno also made the Adidas First Team. The 7-foot-1 center averaged 13.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 2.3 blocked shots. He also shot 62.1% from the floor. Mullins received First Team honors as well behind 19.5 points on 50.8% shooting. He also went for 3.7 rebounds, and 2.6 assists.
The 70-61 upset at the hands of Team Phenom knocked them from the ranks of the unbeaten in their fourteenth game. Phenom's Darryn Peterson was just too much with 38 points, 11 rebounds, and 18 made free throws.
Mullins struggled with his outside shot in Tuesday's surprising loss to Phenom United. He only made 3 of his 12 three-pointers in his first game back from a concussion. He still accounted for 16 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and a pair of steals. Moreno added 8 points and 10 boards.