Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Tar Heels must help Armando Bacot be a first-team All-American.
The AP named UNC’s fifth-year, graduate student a first-team All-American, which tells you how useless preseason awards and rankings can be.
Bacot was a first-team All-ACC player as a junior sensation in 2022, when the Heels reached the NCAA championship game, and he really should have won ACC Player of the Year (over Wake Forest’s Alondes Williams).
He was All-ACC again but finished a distant 3rd for POY last season when UNC suffered the dubious distinction of falling from the AP’s preseason No. 1 to not make the Big Dance (further proof the AP voters don’t know squat).
The prevailing reason for AB’s drop-off was the loss of Brady Manek, the torrid 3-point shooter who forced defenses to go out and cover him and thus gave Mondo much more room to operate in the paint.
When Hubert Davis could not find another way to spread the court, Bacot faced double teams far more often and it affected his game immensely. He took 95 fewer shots and many of them were from farther away from the basket than the year before, and his FGP dropped from 57 percent to 55.4.
As we all know, the Tar Heels have only four returning players from last season and have replaced seven transfers and two graduates with five transfers and two freshmen. One of them is sixth-year grad student Cormac Ryan, who has arrived with Manek-like accuracy from outside.
Keep in mind that the 6-5 Ryan is likely to start at small forward, which will not open up the lane as much as power forward Manek spotting up at the 3-point line. So Davis and his staff still must come up with a more fluid offense to help Bacot get back to his sweet spot inside five feet from the hoop.
He again led the ACC in rebounding but by 3-plus fewer caroms per game than in 2022. Bacot’s total dropped from 163 to 134, largely because the Heels missed the postseason and played 33 games compared to 39 the year before.
So tonight’s exhibition against St. Augustine’s will be less about winning than who besides Bacot and RJ Davis starts and how the inside rotation works to create more spacing for Mondo, one of the most popular athletes in Carolina history with his flair on the court and his personality off.
A year ago, opponents waited to see if the Heels could replicate their open floor offense like their Final Four season. It did not happen, and suddenly the game was much harder for Bacot and the entire team.
Truthfully, it’s up to the rest of the guys to make Bacot great again.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines