CHARLOTTE- North Carolina big man Armando Bacot was one of three UNC players, along with head coach Hubert Davis representing the Tar Heels at the annual ACC Tipoff on Wednesday at the Westin Hotel.
In addition to the formal press conference in the main ballroom, each team was available to the media in breakout rooms. Above is a video of Bacot’s Q&A session in the breakout room, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what the All-ACC big man had to say.
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*After losing in the championship game last season, Bacot and the team’s mentality is all about looking forward and leaving the pain of coming up one win short in the past.
“It's more so about focusing on this year and how we want to get to the championship game this year,” Bacot said. “We don’t focus too much on last year. That’s the great part of four of the five starters coming back. We have another opportunity.”
*Hubert Davis reiterated numerous times that he wanted his team to have as positive of an experience as he and his coaching staff had in Chapel Hill. After turning things around last season, Bacot and company got a small taste of what Carolina is like when the team is successful. Now they want that feeling for a whole year.
“That’s why all of us came back,” he said. “We finally got to experience how Carolina was last year. Freshman year, we weren’t good. Sophomore year, COVID, and getting beat in the tournament. Last year, just going through the ups and downs, our ups were really high. To be able to experience Carolina like that for a whole year is exciting.”
*With so many key players returning to the UNC roster, a lot looks the same, but according to Bacot, last season's success changed the team internally, and he says the team knows its identity going into the season.
“I would say it made us hungry,” he said. “Once you play in big moments like that, you start to believe. It's more maturity from all of us, too, because we played in those games... “We have an identity, and we know what we want to do versus last year. We were filling out trying to find our identity, but now we know our approach.”
*Like most college basketball players, Bacot spent his summer working on his game. But he feels this offseason was the most productive, and he learned more about himself as a player and what he needs to improve.
“I think this offseason has been my strongest offseason,” Bacot said. “The game has slowed down. A lot of the reads and just the way I play has slowed down...I think this summer, out of all summers, I improved the most because this summer I got a chance to work out with high NBA-level guys...They gave me a good measuring stick of what I need to work on to play at the next level.”
*Entering this season, Bacot is among the favorites to win ACC Player of the Year and National Player of the Year. With those expectations, some would expect pressure to be on the senior big man, but as a veteran college player, Bacot says the pressure no longer has an effect on him.
“I don’t feel pressure or get nervous because I have been in some bad situations and I have been in some good situations, to my freshman year wondering if I was good enough, thinking if I should transfer from UNC,” he said. “Am I good enough to play? To where I am now, feeling pressure is in the past.”
