Lucas: Grading On A Curve

By Adam Lucas

Armando Bacot was basking in the very brief afterglow of his first career Tar Heel double-double when he ran headlong into the toughest grader he may ever encounter.

That gentleman's name, of course, is Roy Williams. The Carolina head coach had just watched Bacot contribute 12 points and 11 rebounds to the 77-61 victory over Gardner-Webb, and he was, well, not thrilled.

As the Tar Heels gathered in the locker room after the game, Williams asked Bacot what grade he would give his performance. Bacot went with a meager C grade. The head coach shook his head and made it clear he would deem it barely passing.

Again, Bacot had a double-double.

"He's going to be a really good player," Williams said after the game. "He's got to have more attention to detail."

The source of much of Williams' frustration was Bacot's propensity to bring the ball down to waist level, thereby making the 6-foot-10 freshman much smaller. The big man did it four minutes into the game after a nice high-low pass from Garrison Brooks, then did it again early in the second half. The third time he repeated the offense, after grabbing one of his four offensive rebounds, he earned a trip to the bench four minutes into the second half.

"I've got to stop bringing the ball down," Bacot said. "I kept turning it over when I was bringing it down. And I also missed a couple of assignments on defense."

But it wasn't all a struggle for Bacot on Friday. Shortly after he was yanked, he reentered the game, took a nice entry pass from Leaky Black, made an immediate post move, and tossed in a pretty baby hook over his left shoulder.

As Bacot sprinted back—look, it might only be his third game, but he's already internalized the idea that it's not a good idea to lollygag on defense—he took a quick glance over at Williams on the Tar Heel sideline. There stood the head coach, now the sixth-winningest coach in college basketball history after his 874^thcareer victory, with his palms skyward, eyebrows raised, as if to say, "See?" He was, in his own subtle way, reminding the freshman of what they'd talked about just a few minutes earlier.

Bacot and Williams had a conversation as the team was headed back to the floor after halftime. The head coach's message was simple: "Coach told me just to do what we work on," Bacot said. "Ten minutes before practice every day we work on our go-to moves and our counter moves. That's a shot we work on all the time. That's what I did and it worked."

That's when you remember: Bacot is barely even a work in progress. He's a work that just started a couple months ago. Most of the time, that work is done in those ten-minute sessions before practice. He's having to do much of his development on the court during game action.

In recent weeks, Bacot has been watching film of Tony Bradley. That's an appropriate comparison. Remember Bradley, a reserve on the 2017 national title team? He'd enter the game for a few minutes at a time to spell Kennedy Meeks, make a nice post move or two, and grab a couple of offensive rebounds (Bacot has especially been watching Bradley's work on the offensive glass). Then he'd go back to the bench and let Meeks soak up ten more boards. His season high in minutes played for his entire freshman season was 20.

The difference is that the Tar Heels don't have the luxury of allowing Bacot to develop slowly. They need him right now, in November, against a schedule that gets significantly more difficult in another week. He played 23 minutes on Friday, a game in which Williams didn't even think he played very well.

Williams provided the best possible window into how he coaches a team in November—and the difference between a Hall of Fame coach and a fan. "Do you think this summer I was thinking, 'I hope we win this game?'" he asked after the game. "Come on. We're trying to be the best team we can be. And we can't be the best team we can be if he doesn't play better."

There's the difference. For the game, perhaps, Bacot might have earned an A. But for the team—for the team to achieve what Williams wants them to achieve during the 2019-20 season—the grade was more harsh. That's because Bacot isn't being evaluated against Gardner-Webb. He's being evaluated against the maximum potential of the 2019-20 Tar Heels and his relative importance to that squad, no matter that it's his second full collegiate game.

"I've got to keep getting better," Bacot said. "This is just the start."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

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