Lucas: Simple Math – University of North Carolina Athletics

By Adam Lucas

Maybe we take Armando Bacot for granted.

            

Going into Saturday morning’s game against Notre Dame, it felt like Bacot was having a pretty good season. Then you checked the numbers.

            

The big man is merely leading the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring, rebounding, and offensive rebounding, and he’s fourth in field goal percentage. In other words, ACC Player of the Year type numbers.

            

Then he went out against the Fighting Irish and showed exactly how he’s doing it. This wasn’t one of those games where Bacot hung around the basket, outworked everyone for a few offensive rebounds, and scored on some stick-backs. This was a nice window into what his complete arsenal has become. All he did was score a game-high 21 points to go with his game-high 13 rebounds, statistics that suggest exactly what you suspected while watching the game—Bacot was the best player on the court.

            

That’s something the Tar Heels sometimes forgot during the first few weeks of the season, including back-to-back games against Portland and Iowa State when he took a total of just 12 shots.

            

Over the first eight games of the season—the stretch before he missed the Virginia Tech game with an injury, a contest that is starting to feel like the dividing line of this season—he averaged 9.6 shots per game as Carolina went 5-3. But in the last seven games, he’s averaged 14.4 field goal attempts per contest, including 17 against Notre Dame. Not coincidentally, the Tar Heels are 6-1 in those games.

            

“I’ve been taking a lot of shots,” Bacot said on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. “And when I take a lot of shots, I make a good amount, too.”

He’s right, you know. Much like his game, it’s not that complicated: when he takes more, he makes more.

            

With 21 on Saturday, he has now scored at least 20 points in five straight games for the first time in his career. What’s the context for that statistic? Well, Tyler Hansbrough did it. But here’s a list of other players from the Roy Williams era who did not do it: Marcus Paige, Tyler Zeller, Sean May, Brice Johnson, Harrison Barnes. Those are five of the most consistent, reliable scorers in the modern Carolina era; none were…