Armando Bacot rolls sprained ankle on floorboard at Superdome in UNC’s loss to Kansas
Already gutting his way through the NCAA championship game on an ankle he injured two nights earlier, Armando Bacot looked to be in position to put North Carolina on top with less than a minute to play.
That’s when his right ankle buckled as he planted on a floorboard that video replays showed appeared to be unstable.
With that, UNC’s championship dreams disappeared and Kansas emerged with a 72-69 win at the Superdome to claim the NCAA title.
With Kansas up 70-69, Bacot drove in the lane with Kansas center David McCormack between him and the basket. After his right foot planted and buckled, Bacot fell and turned the ball over with 54 seconds left.
He remained down on the court before getting up and hobbling past midcourt. The officials stopped play with 38.5 seconds left and Bacot was helped from the court.
“I was just trying to drive to the basket,” Bacot said. “And I just kind of unconsciously tried to go up off my right foot. And then that was the ankle that was injured. And I just rolled it again.”
Bacot injured the ankle in the second half of UNC’s 81-77 national semifinal win over Duke on Saturday night. He left the game to receive treatment before later returning.
In between that game and Monday night’s title game, Bacot said he spent most of the time “trying to get my ankle better” with UNC’s athletic training staff.
“They did a great job preparing me for this moment,” Bacot said. “Right before the game, I really couldn’t even jump....We just kept trying to take a crack at it. They didn’t give up. Luckily, I was able to play 38 minutes.”
But after he left the game with 38.5 seconds left, McCormack took advantage of his absence to score with 22 seconds left to put the Jayhawks up, 72-69.
UNC missed three 3-pointers from there, including Caleb Love’s miss at the buzzer.
Bacot finished with 15 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, becoming the first player to record six double-doubles in an NCAA tournament.
This story was originally published April 5, 2022 at 1:07 AM.