UNC basketball and Armando Bacot rout Louisville for first road win of season
North Carolina found out the difference between being inconvenienced and being shorthanded on Saturday against Louisville.
The Tar Heels anticipated potentially being down two starters, and forward Pete Nance missed his third straight game with a back injury, but UNC coach Hubert Davis merely tapped into his bench as the Heels rolled to an 80-59 victory in the KFC Yum! Center for their first road win of the season.
Five players scored in double figures including forward Puff Johnson, who started in place of Nance and scored double figures for the second time in three games with 12 points. UNC guard D’Marco Dunn also contributed a career-high 14 points coming off the bench.
“My preparation was that (Armando Bacot) and Pete Nance weren’t playing,” Davis said. “I had everything lined up in terms of what directions we needed to go from the standpoint of putting Leaky at the 5 and going small. I mean, we worked on that.”
Carolina (12-6, 4-3 ACC) has answers on its roster that the hapless Cardinals (2-16, 0-7) just don’t have. The biggest boost came from leading scorer and rebounder Armando Bacot being back in the starting lineup after playing just the opening 78 seconds in Tuesday’s loss at Virginia before suffering a sprained left ankle.
Bacot said he was still in a boot on Friday and even texted his mother that he wasn’t going to play. It wasn’t until he woke up on Saturday that he felt like he could. For all the consternation about Bacot’s health, he showed no signs of being injured against the Cards. Bacot secured a double-double in the first half, scoring 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting and grabbing 10 rebounds.
“That kind of really has been the story of the season,” Bacot said. “Alabama I got hurt, we lose. That’s a big game. Indiana going in that with the ankle, then I hurt my shoulder, another big game. And then it was Virginia Tech, can’t play. UVA, go out the first minute. So for me, it’s just tough not being able to be out there 100 percent especially in those big games when the team needs me the most. So it’s just great to just be back out there.”
Bacot credited treatment administered by strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahratian and athletics trainer Doug Halverson for getting him back in the lineup. Bacot joked that he had “120 needles throughout his body,” as they attempted to speed up the healing process.
That wasn’t lost on his teammates who said Bacot’s presence gave them a big lift.
“We know what he’s fighting through, and we know what he’s battling through,” Johnson said. “... That was really selfless of him just giving up his body to try to help us win the game.”
Bacot said before the season he wanted to embrace being a villain on the road. He got that chance in the KFC Yum! Center, where many fans believe he got away with physical play last season in Carolina’s overtime win. They frequently booed his fouls, missed shots and turnovers early on.
He again left town with a victory in his 14-point, 16-rebound performance. It marked the 20th game in Bacot’s career that he had 15 or more rebounds.
“It was great getting booed by the fans; I had this game marked off all year just kind of seeing what their response would be because of last year,” Bacot said. “Last year, their team gave us two good runs so I knew it was gonna be a lot of fun coming in here and the energy was great. But we did a good job of extending the lead so it wasn’t really much to say.”
Carolina closed the first half on an 8-0 run to take a 37-26 lead into halftime. Louisville responded to start the second half by scoring the first five points to cut the deficit to six. The Heels had made a habit this season of allowing teams to stay close, but they responded with a 13-2 spurt powered by a pair of 3s from Johnson mixed in with a steal and dunk from Leaky Black. Once they grabbed a 16-point lead, the Cards never challenged again.
“We’ve been in positions before to extend the lead and put the game out of reach, and I just can’t remember a time, maybe with the exception of Georgia Tech, where we extended the lead and we kept it,” Davis said. “This is the first time that we continued to play harder and build our lead throughout the second half. And so that is growth, that’s something that we hadn’t done in the past and, my hope is, it’s something that we can continue to do in the future.”
Cards guard El Ellis, who went to Durham’s Quality Education Academy, got off to a hot start, scoring 11 of their first 15 points. None of the UNC defenders who were put on him initially could keep him out of the lane. He was fouled attacking the baskets three separate times and scored six points from the free-throw line in the first seven minutes of the game.
That changed for Ellis when Dunn got the defensive assignment. Dunn contained Ellis’ drives and twice got the better of him on 3-point attempts.
Ellis had a 3-pointer wiped off when officials said he kicked out his leg and fell to initiate contact. Dunn also got a partial block on an Ellis’ 3 late in the shot clock, as he was scoreless the rest of the half. Ellis, who scored 25 in last season’s overtime loss in Louisville to the Heels, finished with 22 points on 6-for-16 shooting.
“When you do something good on defense, it just makes the game easier for you,” Dunn said. “Like you go into game cold, but when you make a play on defense, it just warms you up. It gets you into a rhythm a little bit easier.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2023 at 5:03 PM.