CHAPEL HILL – There is something a bit different about Armando Bacot as his junior season at North Carolina approaches.
He will always be a cut-up, as jokesters just have it in them. But Bacot has embraced the role of elder statesmen among the Tar Heels, even though he isn’t the team’s most grizzled player. Oklahoma transfer Brady Manek holds that distinction, and senior Leaky Black has some months on Bacot.
But Bacot led the Tar Heels in scoring and rebounding a year ago, and he is primed to serve as the Tar Heels’ go-to guy this winter. He was also the first Carolina player to strike an NIL deal – with Jimmy’s Seafood – and that comes with the responsibility of representing a product. And after testing the NBA draft waters in the spring, Bacot appears to have taken a big step toward professionalism.
Pat Sullivan, UNC’s new Director of Recruiting, who spent the last 18 years working for various NBA franchises, has also educated Bacot on the non-hoops manners in which pros carry themselves, and it is rubbing off on the comical Richmond, VA, native.
Bacot’s growth was evident during an interview he recently did with the media, and it has been within the walls of the Tar Heels’ program.
“Definitely,” sophomore guard RJ Davis said, agreeing that Bacot has become more seasoned.
“Armando’s been a great leader for us. His maturity is through the roof, he’s able to lead the guys and also help us out when needed. We all jell off each other’s energy, and I feel like Armando’s doing a great job as an upperclassman and as a leader.”
A more focused approach to some of those intangibles has clearly been directed toward the basketball court, too. New UNC Coach Hubert Davis pushed him a year ago to move his game out from the lane some. He encouraged Bacot to take other bigs off the dribble. And in time, Bacot took the plunge, and the improvements in his game were obvious.
The 6-foot-10, 240-pounder led UNC with 12.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. In addition, he shot 62.8 percent from the floor and was named third-team All-ACC. His best hoops came at the end of the season.
Bacot scored 15 or more points in 11 of the Tar Heels’ 29 contests, including five of their last six games. In fact, he averaged 16.7 points in that span while converting 35 of 58 shots from the floor, which is 65.5 percent. He also averaged 9.5 boards in that span while playing 25 minutes per contest. Bacot averaged 22.8 minutes over the course of the season.
In two of those games, UNC’s loss to Florida State in the ACC Tournament and loss to Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament, Bacot put the ball on the floor quite a bit, taking big men from the free throw line area to the rim. He usually scored or drew a foul. Sometimes he did both.
Bacot said Davis, who was then an assistant in his ninth season under then-head coach Roy Williams, saw that skill in Bacot and pushed him toward employing it in games. The pupil said it was eventually a matter of confidence.
"Getting more comfortable with it, getting more into my bag,” he said, about adding that part to his game late last season. “I started to see it. I'm a lot faster than most bigs I play against. The ability to rip through (and) either do a move or take them straight to the basket it's just a lot easier, and it also opened up a lot of other things for me too."
That was an important precursor to the things Bacot has added to his game this offseason, again at the urging of his coach. Learning about the range in his mobility late last season was an asset helping Bacot dive into extending his game from the lane using much more of the court this past spring and summer. He has even attempted a ton of three-pointers in those workouts.
Now, it is unlikely Bacot is going to spend a lot of time lurking around the three-point circle, but he can float out there and all points in between.
"Obviously, with the new type of offense we (are) running and the different type of players we're recruiting, (Davis) wants all of us to be able to shoot and extend the floor, not limit our game,” Bacot said. “That's something I've been working on every day with the coaches and on my own, too: to be able to show more than just posting up. To allow freer lanes for the guards, open up the offense more.”
Davis says he wants Bacot to have a similar Carolina experience like he had. That means playing in big games on national stages. It means stealing opponents’ cookies in their frenzied buildings, it means accomplishing something meaningful personally and as a team in a program with gargantuanly high standards. And it means developing into a pro.
“All our guys, they all want to play in the NBA,” Davis said. “And I told Armando, in order for him to have a chance, obviously he’s got to continue to make the jump that he made last year, but he’s got to be able to shoot the ball from the outside.
“This summer he has worked so hard on his outside shot, even all the way out to the three-point range. And that’s something that we’re going to encourage. We want his ability to space the floor and shoot from the outside; he did a little bit last year, but he also has the ability to put the ball on the floor.”
Bacot isn’t going to stop posting up on the lower block. Look at his physique, he may have the strongest lower body in the ACC, and his ability to drop-step and apply spin moves equally well, along with his size, strength, and improving touch around the rim, make him a certain go-to guy down low on every possession if the Heels can make that work.
But it won’t happen because the Heels are going to run more of a spread look. Just like in football, running dive plays all game long will get a team only so far. You gotta run sweeps, pitches, short, wide and long passes, and employ a variety to throw off defenses. The same thing goes for hoops, especially the modern game.
That is the mandate by Davis to his team on versatility, something Bacot has fully embraced.
Older, wiser, more skilled, Bacot has his eyes on the big picture, both his and his team’s.
Armando Bacot Sept. 8 Interview
