Armando Bacot sets UNC basketball records, Tar Heels hold off NC State in 80-69 ACC win
As one star ascended, another took a fall that could change a season.
North Carolina’s Armando Bacot got the records and an 80-69 win Saturday against N.C. State in the Dean E. Smith Center in a game marred by what appeared to be a serious injury to Wolfpack leading scorer Terquavion Smith.
Bacot, a senior forward from Richmond, Va., had 23 points and 18 rebounds to pass Billy Cunningham for first with his 61st double-double in program history. He also surpassed Tyler Hansbrough to become the program’s career rebounding leader. Both are the only players in Carolina’s history to grab more than 1,200 rebounds in their careers.
It’s the kind of feat that will make Bacot’s legacy at North Carolina well thought of, but he’s got another goal in mind to cement it.
“Randomly just some nights I’ll just be up thinking and just wanting to do more, really that’s the man thing,” Bacot said. “Just seeing what Big May (assistant coach Sean May) did and all other great bigs that have been here, I just want to really chase them and the last thing for me is to win a national championship. That’s all I want.”
Bacot needed 17 rebounds to surpass Hansbrough entering the game, and he notched that on an Ebenezer Dowuona miss with 6:57 remaining to a rousing ovation from the Smith Center crowd. After the game, Hansbrough joined Bacot at midcourt in a passing of the torch.
“I’m extremely proud of Armando because I know rebounding is hard work,” Hansbrough told The News & Observer. “The similarities I see is he’s really good at getting his own miss, I think he does that well, and also the way he handles contact from his freshman year to now is unbelievable. I couldn’t be happier for Armando.”
Pack forward D.J. Burns, who scored 18 points on 8-for-13 shooting, tried attacking Bacot to get him in foul trouble. It worked in the first half, when he sat out the last four minutes after picking up his second foul.
But in the second half Bacot scored 10 of Carolina’s first 11 points that led to Burns picking up two quick fouls having to come out of the game. N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts elected to play Bacot straight up instead of sending double teams, but just conceded, “It’s hard to stop him.”
“What he’s become really good at is when you double him, those other guards tend to get off,” Keatts said. “So we picked our poison and said, ‘Let’s stay with him.’ I think that’s why the game was in range because we didn’t double him where he could throw it out to the other guys who could make shots.”
Carolina shot just 4 of 18 from 3-point range. But thanks to their near perfection from the free-throw line, and Bacot’s production in the post, it never became a factor. UNC guard D’Marco Dunn said they don’t expect anything less from Bacot.
“These are numbers that Mando’s been putting up since I came here as a freshman last year,” Dunn said. “We almost kind of get numb to it, but this was something I’ll look back and say this was amazing.”
It was a very different feeling midway through the second half. The capacity crowd was silent as it watched Smith placed on a stretcher and wheeled off the floor.
With 9:45 left, UNC forward Leaky Black fouled Smith on a layup and struck him in the head. Smith came down off balance and appeared to land awkwardly on his elbow. UNC staff including athletics trainer Doug Halverson provided an aircast for his right arm, then he was placed on a stretcher.
Smith’s neck was also placed in a brace as he was carted off the floor and taken to UNC Medical Center. The game stopped for about 11 minutes of real time.
When play resumed, Black was called for a flagrant-2 foul and ejected. The Pack took advantage of the free throws and possessions and cut a 10-point deficit down to 59-53.
Smith not only led the Pack, he entered the game as the ACC’s leading scorer averaging 19.1 points per game. Without him as the focal point of their offense, the Pack went four minutes without scoring. Carolina didn’t shoot much better from the field: It went five minutes between field goals from Black’s dunk and a R.J. Davis layup.
The difference was the Heels kept getting to the free-throw line even as they missed shots. UNC had a 7-0 burst scoring all on free throws including a flagrant-1 call on Casey Morsell as his off hand struck Caleb Love in the face on a layup. Armed with a 66-53 lead with 6:09 left, the Heels maintained control of the game the rest of the way.
Carolina ranks first in the ACC with a 40.1 percent free-throw rate and the Pack are ranked last in terms of how often it sends opponents to the line with a rate of 41.7 percent, according to Ken Pomeroy. That fell in line as the Heels shot a season-high 36 of 39 from the free-throw line.
“I love 3s, I do, but we’re the best in the conference in terms of getting to the free-throw line,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “Currently, right now N.C. State is the worst at putting people out to free-throw line. So going into the game, it was important for us to attack the basket through post or penetration and after that first six or seven minutes in the first first half, I thought we did a better job of putting our head down and penetrating.”
R.J. Davis set the tone in that regard, scoring 14 of his 26 points the free-throw line for Carolina. The junior guard only took eight shots, but he was perfect on 14 free-throw attempts. Even his mistakes turned out well. Davis banked in a 3-pointer in the first half with the shot clock about to expire forcing him to shoot off of one foot about 37 feet from the basket.
“Honestly, the angle the way the ball was going I thought it was just like off to the right, but I banked it in and had to do my little Steph Curry move,” R.J. Davis said.
Burns was the boost that the Pack needed on offense. The 6-foot-9 forward bullied UNC big men Pete Nance and Jalen Washington when they tried to stop the 275-pound forward from getting where he wanted in the post.
Burns scored nine points in the first half on 4-for-6 shooting and helped draw two fouls on Bacot that sent him to the bench. Burns was so effective scoring that the Heels started to double team him.
When they did, his quick outlet passes had Carolina defenders scrambling and Morsell knocked down a pair of open 3-pointers.
That all changed in the second half.
Burns picked up two fouls within 36 seconds of each other and picked up his fourth with 12:45 left. Burns sat out for six minutes before returning. But the Heels’ lead was too much to overcome.
This story was originally published January 21, 2023 at 7:27 PM.