In sports, we often fall prey to recency bias, thinking that the most recent iteration of a team or a dominant athlete is the best ever. In so doing, we often fail to take into account context and/or we cheapen the incredible feats put forth by those who have come before.
On the other hand, we often deify specific statistical feats of the past and fail to observe and properly appreciate what’s happening right in front of our eyes. We so often miss an athlete’s greatness in the midst of what he or she is doing.
That said, I want to give you an opportunity to stop and smell the current roses. Specifically today, let’s make sure we’re able to appreciate the Tar Heels’ current leading scorer and rebounder in real time.
Who is that man? None other than Armando Bacot.
Thanks to his career high 17 rebounds on Wednesday night against Notre Dame, Bacot is now averaging a double-double (15.7 points, 10.4 rebounds) and has launched himself into elite national territory.
As of this writing, Carolina’s junior center is one of just 17 qualified Division I players averaging double-digit rebounds. Further, he is one of just 16 averaging a double-double (NOTE: all double-double references in this article will be to those of the points and rebounds variety).
Of those 16 players, only five, including Bacot, come from a major conference team.
Specific to the ACC, Bacot leads the conference in rebounding average and is one of just two ACC players averaging double-digit rebounds (NC State’s Dereon Seabron is the other).
Here’s the full list of the players averaging double-digit rebounds (in order of rebounding average):
- Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky) – 15.2 points & 15.1 rebounds
- Fardaws Aimaq (Utah Valley) – 19.6 & 13.6
- Kofi Cockburn (Illinois) – 22.5 & 11.9
- Chuba Ohams (Fordham) – 14.5 & 11.3
- Enrique Freeman (Akron) – 12.3 & 11.1
- Kevin Marfo (Quinnipiac) – 10.1 & 11.0
- John Harrar (Penn State) – 10.8 & 10.5
- Dillon Jones (Weber State) – 13.4 & 10.5
- Jamal Cain (Oakland) – 21.3 & 10.5
- Justin Bean (Utah State) – 19.8 & 10.4
- Armando Bacot (North Carolina) – 15.7 & 10.4
- Norchad Omier (Arkansas State) – 15.1 & 10.4
- Royce Hamm, Jr. (UNLV) – 8.9 & 10.2
- Johni Broome (Morehead State) – 15.6 & 10.2
- Jayveous McKinnis (Jackson State) – 12.0 & 10.1
- Essam Mostafa (Coastal Carolina) – 16.3 & 10.1
- Dereon Seabron (NC State) – 19.7 & 10.0
If that current national data isn’t enough for you, listen to the path Bacot is on in the stream of Carolina basketball history.
Through Carolina’s first 14 games, Bacot has recorded 10 double-doubles and has a current five-game streak going.
Just how good is that?
I’ll provide some context.
Brice Johnson holds the Carolina single-season record for double-doubles, set in 2015-16. That season, he achieved a double-double in 23 of UNC’s 40 games. To be able to compare Johnson’s incredible senior season with Bacot’s current campaign, the natural question is then to ask how many double-doubles Johnson had through Carolina’s first 14 games in 2015-16.
The answer? Seven.
That means that through 14 games, Bacot is three games ahead of Johnson’s record-setting pace. Granted, the current record holder had 40 games to set his mark, nine of which came in postseason play. Due to the variability of NCAA postseason, there’s no telling how many postseason opportunities Bacot will have to add to his total.
Despite our lack of knowledge about Carolina’s total number of games this season, let’s do some projecting. What fun are sports and records (and breaking them) if we can’t look ahead?
10 double-doubles in 14 games means that Bacot is averaging five double-doubles every seven games played.
Assuming the Tar Heels get to play all their remaining regular season games (including making up the postponed Virginia Tech game), they have 17 left. Barring a meltdown Carolina will have at least two postseason games (one in the ACC Tournament and one in the NCAA Tournament). To make the math easy to work with, let’s also assume that the Tar Heels get one postseason victory in both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments for a total of 21 more games in the 2021-22 season.
At an average of five double-doubles every seven games, Bacot should tally 15 more double-doubles this season for a total of 25, which would set a new single-season UNC record.
Let’s assume a different scenario in which the Tar Heels make the championship game of both tournaments. In that scenario, Carolina would have 26 remaining games. With those five extra games, Bacot projects to total 18.6 more double-doubles for a total of 28.6.
In addition to the impressive total number of double-doubles thus far, Bacot has also amassed a current double-double streak of five games. That number matches the longest streak of Johnson’s record-setting 2015-16 campaign.
The most recent Tar Heel to have a longer double-double streak was Garrison Brooks, who recorded six in a row during the 2019-20 season. Bacot will vie to tie that mark on Saturday when Virginia comes to the Dean Dome. Reaching the six-game plateau would tie Bacot with Brooks, Antawn Jamison, and Rusty Clark (twice) for the sixth-longest double-double streak in program history.
Everything up through second place is in play. But first place? Armando Bacot is not sniffing that number. And likely neither is any other Tar Heel ever.
Billy Cunningham holds that distinction with 40 (FORTY!) straight double-doubles covering the final 20 games of 1962-63 and the first 20 games of 1963-64. That mark is an ACC record and the second-longest in NCAA history.
How out of reach is 40 games? Doug Moe is in second place in the Carolina record book with “just” an 11-game double-double streak (which he did twice).
NOTE: Carolina points out in their record book that Lennie Rosenbluth and Pete Brennan should likely be on this list somewhere, but rebound totals are unknown for some of their games.
For the record, Cunningham also holds the UNC mark for most career double-doubles with 60. Bacot is currently at 28. He’d need to hit 35 to break into the top-10 in the Carolina record book.
How does this happen?
A jump of this statistical magnitude doesn’t just happen overnight. How did Bacot ascend to this status of being a double-double machine?
Keep in mind that he was not previously foreign to double-doubles, averaging nine per season in his freshman and sophomore campaigns. However, given that Bacot's already eclipsed that average just 14 games into this season, it warrants a closer look.
I’ve identified three areas that I believe most contribute to Bacot's junior season growth:
1. Maturity. The first factor is Bacot’s age. By college basketball standards, he’s practically a dinosaur. Despite coming to school as a potential one-and-done, Bacot has bided his time and has not jumped ship before the appropriate time to move on to the next level. His progression is one that has been typical throughout much of the history of college basketball, but in a day and age where players don’t always stick around, he has, and it’s paid off.
2. Hard work. The second factor is Bacot’s work ethic. Sure, some of the basketball and personal growth happens naturally just by sticking around. That said, the athlete is solely responsible for being driven enough to put in the time and effort to raise their game to All-American levels. For example, in order to improve his three-point shot, Bacot made 1,000 threes a week this summer. The hard work pays off. Bacot’s scoring has jumped by around 3 points each year – 9.6 to 12.3 to 15.7. His rebounding has gone from 8.3 to 7.8 to 10.4.
3. Opportunity. The third factor (and perhaps the biggest one in terms of adding statistical growth) is opportunity. Last year’s frontcourt was a loaded four-headed monster comprised of Bacot, Garrison Brooks, Day’Ron Sharpe, and Walker Kessler. Brooks (Mississippi State) and Kessler (Auburn) both play in the SEC now and Sharpe is in the NBA playing for the Nets. What do those departures add up to? Bacot is the only pure center in the rotation. That means loads of opportunity for him to score and get rebounds at will as he did against Notre Dame.
Bacot is on the right track and making great strides to stay on that track. With the team spread out more and shooting well from deep (currently ninth in the country at 39.7%), Bacot should continue to have all the room he wants and needs to operate inside. It will continue to be incumbent upon Love and Davis and other ballhandlers to get him the ball.
We don’t know if Bacot’s double-double barrage will continue, but I can’t wait to find out.
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January 08, 2022 at 08:00PM
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