North Carolina forward Armando Bacot spent the summer of 2021 taking 1,000 3-pointers per day to improve his range, only to attempt a total of eight during the season with one make.
The senior from Richmond, Va., returned for another year in college partly because he knows without a perimeter game his skill set doesn’t fit into the way the game is played in the NBA today. So he spent another summer working on developing the things that translate to the NBA.
Bacot said he’s focused on things like setting screens, becoming more of a facilitator in halfcourt sets and being able to step outside and consistently make a jumper off a pick and roll. That includes having 3-point range to his shot, which is what NBA teams covet in a big man.
“I know at the next level I won’t be some big-time scorer posting and things like that,” Bacot said. “So I’m just trying to be that janitor. I feel like everybody needs a janitor everywhere. So I think I can be that guy. So those kinds of things I want to really just specialize in.”
Most janitors could never match Bacot’s 31 double-doubles last season, which tied Navy’s David Robinson for the all-time NCAA single-season record. Bacot led Carolina with 16.3 points and 13.1 rebounds last season and may have been one turned ankle away from leading it to a seventh NCAA title.
But Bacot said he’s watched NBA players like Kevon Looney and Al Horford to see how they remained effective on the floor despite not playing with their backs to the basket like a traditional big man.
“That’s just a realization I just had to come to myself like, ‘Am I really gonna be out there shooting 10 jump hooks a game?’ No,” Bacot said. “But I can go out there and grab rebounds, sit in a dunking spot, catch lobs, set screens, get guys open. I mean, those are the things I’d been doing at the next level. So that’s something that we really put an emphasis on.”
Bacot’s not trying to abandon everything that makes him a great college player. He’s just trying to enhance it.
And it’s all at the insistence of UNC coach Hubert Davis.
“He said I can’t come back if I’m not taking X amount of 3-point attempts,” Bacot said. “A lot of this stuff he wants me to do now is scoring in a different way. He kind of wanted me to reinvent myself. That’s more of a conversation we had after the season because coach, he wants me to get paid (in the NBA).”
Bacot is getting paid now and has become the de facto face of UNC men’s basketball in terms of name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities. It’s part of the reason why he said it made his decision to return to school easier.
Those same NIL obligations have been very time consuming over the summer, but Bacot and his teammates insist it hasn’t taking him away from basketball. His highly publicized casting on the Netflix show, “Outer Banks,” was actually limited because of his schedule.
“We know what our goal is and we know this happened because of what we did,” guard Caleb Love said. “We know that this is not our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to win a national championship. So that’s been our mentality.”
Love and R.J. Davis were among the Carolina players who attended Bacot’s basketball camp over the weekend in Richmond. Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin also stopped by to speak to the campers.
Bacot’s rubbing elbows in elite social circles now. But he’s focused on a future that doesn’t include celebrity status. He’s just trying to sweep the floors.
