CHAPEL HILL – Twenty-five months ago, Armando Bacot emerged from an internal battle a bit stronger, wiser, and more confident than before he started hearing negative voices in his head.
A freshman forward on North Carolina’s basketball team, the 6-foot-10 Bacot suffered an ankle injury in an ugly home loss to Ohio State, beginning a seven-game stretch in which he averaged only 6.3 points and shot 31.8 percent from the floor.
The low-point was a 2-for-14 performance in a loss to Wofford inside Carmichael Auditorium. The numbers included a period in which he temporarily reversed course with a 15-point, 12-rebound effort in a win over UCLA in Las Vegas.
The voices, however, interfered with Bacot’s focus and had him doubting his game. But he pulled through, and now as a junior, Bacot has put forth performances linking him with fabled Tar Heels such as Lennie Rosenbluth, Billy Cunningham, and Tyler Hansbrough.
Twenty-five months ago is not a long time, but for Bacot it might as well be a century ago. He has come so far, and if junior Armando could go back in time and offer some advice to freshman Armando, he would.
“I can remember that stretch, because beforehand, coming off of the Bahamas trip, I was putting up crazy numbers, and then to go through that tough stretch getting injured and then it was the Wofford game when I struggled real badly,” Bacot told THI in an exclusive interview on Tuesday. “And that kind of changed a little bit of the trajectory of what I was doing that season.
“Just looking back at it now, I would tell myself like, ‘Hey, you’re going to have a bad game, it’s just about how you respond.’”
The Richmond, VA, native responded fairly well in his inaugural year, but has really taken off now in his third season in Carolina blue.
He is a grizzled old guy now, so to speak, no longer the kid who openly revealed the battles of late 2019, and every bit of his game and how he carries himself reflect that growth. Bacot is mature now, a Kenan Flagler Business School student, and an All-ACC cager on the court.
“For Armando, I have felt like the career that he’s having is a natural progression of college basketball players, the way that it used to be...,” UNC Coach Hubert Davis said in an exclusive interview with THI on Thursday. “I think we all learn and we all grow from our experiences, good and bad, that allow us to be the person that we are, the basketball player that we are.
“So, that’s what Armando is doing. He’s growing. He’s growing as a basketball player, he’s growing as a person, he’s growing as a teammate. It’s a natural progression of going through a number of different experiences, good and bad, and working through those things.”
Bacot has turned himself into one of the top players in the ACC and is discussed nationally as one of the premier big men in the country. Through the Tar Heels’ first 26 games, Bacot is averaging 16.2 points and 12.1 rebounds per contest. He has grabbed 10 or more rebounds in 20 games, something that has happened only six times previously at Carolina. He also has 19 double-doubles this season.
In a 25-day span beginning January 8 versus Virginia, Bacot pulled down 20-plus boards three times, making him just the third Tar Heel to ever do so in a single season. He joined UNC legends Rosenbluth and Cunningham in that stat category. Two of the five times anyone has snared 20-plus boards inside the Smith Center were when Bacot did so against the Cavaliers and Virginia Tech, which occurred on Jan. 24.
He is a certified glass eater, and his coach believes that skill makes Bacot a bonafide NBA prospect. Davis says to make an NBA roster, a player must be elite at something, be it defense, shooting, rebounding. And to stick in the league, the player must be highly elite at one of those things. The first-year Carolina coach sees one of those characteristics in Bacot’s game almost nightly.
“One of the things that Armando does at an elite level is he rebounds,” Davis said. “That translates.”
But Davis has also been open about the other aspects of Bacot’s game that need to work. To not just help the Tar Heels, but better his chances at sticking in the league, which Davis says is Bacot’s clear goal, those prospects will be enhanced by improving his offensive arsenal.
Bacot says he and Davis often discuss the next level. Davis’ honesty is appreciated, and so is his wisdom.
“I would say a mixture of just shooting the ball more, probably,” Bacot said. “Just being more efficient shooting the ball, and being even better defensively.”
Improved footwork has been a big part of Bacot’s progress on the offensive end. He has learned to economize movements as he’s matured on the court. A move that took five steps as a freshman might take four now, and include a more direct path to the rim.
Feeling defenders, sealing on the lower block, using his hip more to gain separation allowing fewer contested shots, and squaring to the basket more are all byproducts of Bacot’s work. It has required effort away from the court as well as on it.
Smart athletes know the film doesn’t lie. Smarter ones embrace what films reveal. Part of Bacot’s growth as a player, something that has followed directly in concert with his development as a young man, is how he approaches critiquing himself.
Mentoring him in this process is assistant coach Sean May, who knows a thing or two about developing and refining a game in the post.
May was the 2005 National Player of the Year and Most Outstanding Player in the 2005 Final Four leading the Tar Heels to the national championship. He was a cerebral player when he arrived at UNC, but still had to work on shoring up his footwork and getting his body right to handle the constant beating he took in the paint.
The time spent breaking down film with May has been invaluable to Bacot.
“It’s just the combination with the work I put in over the summer with Big May,” Bacot said about his overall development. “We watched a lot of film on this last year, and on some of the stuff he did, too, and kind of put it all in perspective. And then I try to take what I like, and the stuff I don’t like just leave. And it’s been helping me out a lot.”
Maturity wasn’t much of an issue for May, but it was for Bacot, and that has been part of the other lessons learned from the legendary Tar Heel. Bacot used to allow bad plays or stretches to linger, thus affecting ensuing performance. Not anymore.
He closed the door on that kind of thinking a while ago, well, it was completely shut after UNC’s loss to Purdue at the Mohegan Sun in November. Bacot finished with two points and five rebounds playing only 17 minutes because of foul trouble. He eventually fouled out that afternoon.
A poor shooting night (1-for-10) versus Boston College, in part because of a banged-up wrist, and in a surprising loss Wednesday to Pittsburgh are the only times since the Purdue game Bacot has not scored in double figures. He broke free that weekend before Thanksgiving shedding a younger skin, giving him a healthier and wiser perspective on basketball and life in general.
Of course, this is a process that started a couple of years ago.
“That’s been huge for me,” Bacot said. “I would say my biggest thing my freshman year was I really thought everything would be easy. Coming into college, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and then you factor into confidence things as a freshman. You go on the road and play and may play a couple of tough games, may have a bad game here and there and then it keeps spiraling.
“That’s one of the biggest things that changed last year going into this year; I just play every day by day, and if I have a bad game, I don’t put too much pressure on myself in terms of like missing shots and things like that. I try to figure out what it was, and I never just blame myself.”
And if Bacot chooses to pursue his dream of playing in the NBA after this season, few will cast negativity his way.
Bacot has the tools to reach the next level. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and owning the right disposition daily, he is inching closer to that becoming his personal reality. As Davis said, Bacot is already an elite rebounder, and he continues working on the other parts of his game he hopes will also eventually translate to the next level.
“Yes, his ability to step away on the floor, that’s going to be an added benefit,” Davis said. “That’ll be great for him in the league. But what he does at an elite level is rebound the basketball. So, I think a lot of players take their eye off what is the most important thing.
“That’s what has put him in position for his dreams to come true. Not because he can now shoot the ball from the outside, it’s because he’s rebounding at an elite level.”
Bacot was an effective rebounder when he arrived at Carolina, but he wasn’t considered great by any means. He was an up-and-down kid with voices running through his head occasionally hamstringing on-court performances.
But it was a beneficial time, a period of personal discovery that has manifested into a terrific college career that at least has another month or so remaining, and perhaps another full season after that. He doesn’t appear in a rush at getting to the next level. NIL and an appreciation for his place in UNC lore have become increasingly important to Bacot. So has winning.
Ask Bacot what else he wants to accomplish at UNC, and he speaks nothing about personal stats or awards, though he admittedly wants to win ACC Player of the Year and eventually have his jersey in the Dean Dome rafters. But Bacot wants something else hanging, too.
“I want to put a team banner somewhere up there in one of those categories,” he said. “I just want to be a part of some type of team history at North Carolina. If that’s winning an ACC regular season championship, ACC Tournament, national championship, just something.”
And if the Tar Heels achieve something along those lines while Bacot is still around, he will surely be the centerpiece of that success.
That would be a pretty nice ride, too, for a kid who fought through confidence battles as a newbie, and is coming out a grown man with a pro future on the other end.
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THI's Exclusive Interview With Armando Bacot
