CHARLOTTE – The price of success met Armando Bacot this past offseason, and it continues. But he is just fine with it.

The North Carolina senior forward is one of the most decorated players in college basketball and happens to play for the bluest of blue bloods. Being on the UNC hoops platform is a big deal, and gets plenty of eyes regardless of performance.

But the 6-foot-10 Bacot is coming off a season in which he played at an extraordinarily high level, and helped lead the Tar Heels to the national championship game. With that, his fame soared, so did his cash flow and the expectations for what he and the Heels could achieve this season.

Being a UNC player, expectations are normal. Fame is, too, but the last six months have been different for Bacot. He joked at the ACC TipOff he might attend the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh with a girl, but might not because they will get a lot of attention, maybe even swarmed.

“Before it was pretty bad, especially in North Carolina and Virginia,” Bacot said about people approaching him everywhere he goes. “But now, it’s a national thing.

“After the Final Four, I went to the Dominican Republic, Pocahonta, and I was getting hounded as soon as I got there. And I was like, ‘Man, okay, I might be a little famous now.’ After the ‘Outer Banks’ thing, people come up to me every day asking about ‘Outer Banks.’”

Outer Banks is a Netflix series Bacot was in, and he also attended the Kentucky Derby, threw out the first pitch at a Baltimore Orioles game, and was all over the map: Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago.

The NIL deals, of which he reportedly has a half dozen, and other opportunities just kept coming in, and Bacot took advantage of many.

“It allowed me to work with a bunch of different people,” he said. “When I went to Kentucky, I got a chance to work out with (UK forward) Oscar (Tshiebwe), that was my guy.”

At the ACC’s annual basketball media day, Bacot was the star of the show. As many members of the media surrounded him as his head coach in the breakout room, and autograph seekers at The Westin in downtown Charlotte were more interested in him than anyone else.

There was a mini-rock star component to Bacot there.

It helps that he’s projected as the preseason ACC Player of the Year, and is on every first-team All-America list. The likely all-time leading rebounder in UNC’s fabled history by sometime in January, Bacot is taking it all in.

He doesn’t get too low nor does he get too high, though those early accolades he could probably do without, sort of.

“My initial thought is luck isn’t on my side because everybody that’s been preseason national player of the year or ACC player of the year haven’t gotten it,” he said, chuckling. “So, my initial thought is, ‘Wow, I may be getting jinxed.’

“I think I’m ready for it, though. I know it’s going to take a lot of hard work, and I know I’ve got to do a lot of the same things I did last year, and maybe get a little better at those things.”

Scoring, rebounding, defending, setting massive screens, and keeping a good vibe among his teammates is what Bacot did last season and plans on doing even more of this winter. And with that will come even more fame, fortune, and accolades, which is just fine by him.

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