North Carolina’s Armando Bacot understands the business of basketball, and basketball comes first

To so many who follow college athletics, the manner in which North Carolina star Armando Bacot is earning money is what is most interesting. That, and the fact it’s no longer against NCAA rules for him to generate income by endorsing products and companies, by acting in a popular television program. What may fascinate more, though, is how he chooses to spend his various paychecks, estimated by some to be in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars.

“Me, I just try to manage it by not spending any of my money,” Bacot told The Sporting News, then flashed his engaging smile. “I’m pretty cheap.” By comparison, he said of teammates Caleb Love and Leaky Black, “They’ve got a package coming every week.”

We are sitting in the film room at the Dean E. Smith Center, on the sort of warm, crisp autumn day the state of North Carolina seems to conjure like no other place. The 2022-23 NBA season opened the night before, and Bacot acknowledged there was a twinge of longing as he watched. He could have been there, under those lights, playing against those stars and legends.

A 6-11, 235-pound center, he had averaged 16.3 points and 13.1 rebounds in the 2021-22 season, his third with the Tar Heels. He scored 23 points on 10-of-11 shooting in the Tar Heels’ 13-point destruction of Duke on the March evening at Cameron Indoor Stadium reserved to honor retiring coach Mike Krzyzewski. He followed that with 11 points and 23 rebounds in a Final Four victory for the Heels that ended Coach K’s career.

Had Armando had been born five years earlier, he’d almost certainly have entered the NBA Draft after all this was completed. Because even if he weren’t established as a first-round pick after three years in college, he’d have been paid something, somewhere to play basketball professionally – and there’d have been only cost-of-attendance payments available in Division I.

In the Name/Image/Likeness Age, it is no longer is mandatory for a promising young talent to evacuate NCAA basketball in order to be able to earn a significant sum. And so we have such gifted players as Bacot and Sporting News Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky and Gonzaga great Drew Timme still chasing varsity letters and Final Four appearances and ready to brighten our winter with their adventures.

MORE: Bacot part of Sporting News Preseason All-America team

It is likely there is no one better situated to take advantage of this development than Bacot, who has been preparing for this intersection of basketball and business since he was a kid watching his father run a car dealership and trucking company and his mother operate as a real estate agent. As a student at Trinity Episcopal School in Richmond, Va., he endeavored to meet the high-profile executives whose children were students at the school. That only accelerated during his one year at IMG Academy in Florida.

He chose North Carolina for his college career, in part because he could develop there into an All-America candidate with a Final Four on his resume, and in part because of his interest in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, a top-10 program for undergrads.

Not just anyone gets admitted to Kenan-Flagler. Current UNC students must apply after their first or second academic years on campus. “I knew my application would be strong,” he said, “because I’ve had a lot of different things I’ve done business-wise. So I felt pretty confident getting into the school. It’s definitely tough, but I’d struggle more in a class like Astronomy versus a business school class that’s just something I’m interested in.”

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On the morning before the NCAA championship game between Kansas and North Carolina, I arrived at the Caesars Superdome intending to write about how the confrontation between Bacot and KU’s late-blooming David McCormack would be at the core of determining which blueblood program would add to its bulging trophy case.

Every year, the NCAA places each team’s five starters in separate rooms, called “breakouts”, so journalists can drift among them and gather a variety of voices to inform their articles and broadcast reports. I’ve covered 32 Final Fours, and this was the practice for all of them save the pandemic-restricted 2021 event.

From Kansas-Oklahoma in Kansas City to Virginia-Texas Tech in San Antonio, only once before did I enter a player’s breakout session and find it impossible to leave because the conversation was too damned interesting. That was at the 2010 Final Four in Indianapolis with Butler’s Ronald Nored. I was not the only one impressed. At 32, Nored is starting his second season as an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers, his eighth in professional basketball. He got two interviews in 2021 for the head coaching position with the Washington Wizards.

I wrote 1,200 words about the Bacot-McCormack matchup. I used three Bacot quotes. I didn’t need to sit through a full half-hour with him, but the simple truth is there was literally nothing better to do. He was that engaging.

“I don’t know what it is, but he has it. His personality … it’s very charismatic. It just comes out in everything that he says and everything that he does,” Carolina coach Hubert Davis told The Sporting News. “I was the one who started recruiting him, so I’ve known him since his junior year in high school. And to be around him, and to see his growth and his confidence in himself has been really cool.

“He could have easily left after his freshman year, and he could be in the NBA now. His willingness to continue to come back every year and want to be better and want to improve is a great example to a number of people of how you can do things.

“I just can’t imagine not coaching him. One of these days I’m going to have to, and that’s not going to be a good day. I just love being around him.”

Bacot admits to being somewhat overwhelmed by the media obligations that exist for a Final Four player, but he views it – logically – as a privilege rather than a burden. Even if it means sitting in a breakout session with different reporters popping in just to ask the questions he covered 8 minutes earlier.

“When I’m going in with the media, a lot of people look down on that. But I think it’s just great, because everybody would want to be in that position,’ Bacot said. “Once you get in that position, a lot of people like to complain and stuff, but I think it’s just fun to be as transparent and honest as possible. All of this is a part of the game. I just enjoy it.

“A lot of times you are getting asked the same question, but I mean, I always try to answer them. I may put a different spin on them. One time, I may answer without telling the full story, so it just gives me a chance to expand on what I was talking about.”

MORE: UNC, Kentucky sit atop SN’s preseason Top 25 rankings

Adam Gold, the midday host on Raleigh’s 99.9 The Fan, has featured Bacot twice on his program. Athlete interviews on live radio sometimes rely more on the name of the guest than the content he or she delivers. But some stand out.

“The thing about Armando that I have found enjoyable is he is not a stock-answer guy,” Gold told TSN. “I think he has a good sense of humor. I think he has a great sense of who he is. I have not noticed an inflated ego about him. And especially based on the way last year ended, and the damage that he did to Duke in those games, it could have been a lot different, but he seemed incredibly respectful. There was no boastfulness about him based on how he played in those games.

“He also didn’t play, at least with me, the ‘nobody gave us a chance’ card. And that would easily have been the case going to Duke because nobody did give them a chance.”

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Although he has been a host and basketball analyst at ACC Network for the whole of Bacot’s career, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Jordan Cornette from getting to know the Carolina star as more than a rapidly developing big man. This past summer, though, Cornette got to spend five days with the current Tar Heels as part of a fantasy camp run by Davis.

Four starters are back from last season: Bacot, Love, Black and point guard RJ Davis. With forward Brady Manek gone to professional basketball, the Tar Heels accepted a transfer from Northwestern, Pete Nance, whose father and brother are NBA veterans and who averaged 14.6 points and 45.2 percent 3-point shooting last season.

“It’s a very close group, and the guy at the head of all that – he’s like the patriarch of the 2022-23 Carolina team – is Armando Bacot,” Cornette told TSN. “He is like the leader, the father of the team. Pete Nance, who I kind of knew a little bit, I met him down there and asked him how he’s gotten acclimated. And he goes, ‘Jordan, it’s been great. Coming from Northwestern, a decent program, but coming to this blueblood, Armando was the first guy who got me involved and wanted to ingratiate me with the team … and it was seamless.’

“Armando has grown in fame – his rise was pretty crazy between a year ago and now. And the way he’s handled it, it’s a level of maturity I’m stunned to see. He just comes across like he’s very in control, very aware of the situation, aware of who he is. He’s got a big personality. He likes to laugh. He likes to joke with his guys. I think that’s what those guys love about it: He immerses himself like he’s a role player.”

As loquacious as Bacot may be, he does struggle to explain how last season’s Tar Heels could be talented enough to reach the NCAA championship game yet finish the regular season with eight losses by an average margin of 19 points. When they lost, they did not mess around. They were convincing.

They lost by 17 points to Tennessee, by 22 at Wake Forest, by 28 at Miami and by 29 against Kentucky. And the 9-point home loss to 10-16 Pitt managed to be more disheartening than all of them.

Davis said all that did not dissuade him from the belief the Heels could be great, that showing the players a picture of the Superdome on the first day of practice and promising they could get there had not been a fantasy.

“I never felt we went off track. Everybody else did,” Davis said. “I’ve always believed that it is a guarantee there’s going to be sunny days and cloudy days. I just knew that. The key for me was how would we respond to those cloudy days.”

Those days were not so much cloudy as stormy, but that was no more unsettling for the Heels.

“You know, he’s 100 percent telling the truth,” Bacot said. “A lot of the time, on every other team I’ve been on that was in that situation, we would have gotten down on ourselves. But I think we were so delusional at times – I can remember the plane ride back from Kentucky, us saying, ‘We’re going to see them again. I can’t wait.’ We knew we were a good team. It’s just like: Everything wasn’t clicking. We had a new team, new coaches – it was a lot of new faces, and we still were trying to figure out our identity.

“I think that’s what makes the whole story about last year even more crazy. Because we, legit, were getting our butts whupped. We lost to Miami and Wake Forest. We came in the locker room, it was a late Saturday night game at Wake, we drove back here and we came in and just were just sitting there talking for hours. And we, legit, even after that, thought we had a chance. There was no game we went in thinking we were going to lose, even if we ended up losing. I think that might have been somewhat the problem, but toward the end it helped us.”

The greatest difference in the team from the 18-8 start to the 11-2 finish was Davis’ decision to abandon the two-big lineup that had been a staple of Carolina basketball going back at least to the Mitch Kupchak-Tom LaGarde tandem that helped the Heels to the 1977 title game. Davis began deploying transfer Brady Manek more commonly as a stretch-4. In those final 13 games, nine against NCAA Tournament teams, he shot 40-of-92 from 3-point range, including three or more 3-pointers in every March Madness game.

The urgency for opponents to cover Manek opened space inside for Bacot to dominate. In that stretch run, he averaged 15.2 rebounds and 55.6 percent shooting. He recorded six consecutive NCAA Tournament double-doubles, a record that almost certainly won’t be broken unless someone insists on breaking the NCAA Tournament by expanding it beyond the current 68 entrants.

In the Sweet 16 game against UCLA, in many ways the most difficult March Madness game for the Heels before their loss in the final, he gathered eight offensive rebounds, including the one he chased down in the corner and saved from going out of bounds with 1:47 left. The Bruins led by 3 at that point, and a stop there would have come close to sealing it. Instead, Bacot’s retrieval flew to Love at the top of the key; there, Love nailed the fifth of his six 3-pointers and tied the game. Bacot earned a simple assist on Love’s game-winner 45 seconds later.

“In my press conference, I said in the pre-game: He is an elite rebounder, and he’s a lock to make it in the NBA because rebounding translates,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin told TSN. “All you have to do is look at Karl Malone, Paul Millsap, Kenneth Faried, P.J. Tucker, Zach Randolph – all great college rebounders. They all make it. And they last forever.

“He has an unbelievable skill. He does other things. He can score. He’s the best rebounder we’ve played against in my time at UCLA. He can defend and rebound in the NBA right now.

“He must have heard my comments, that he was one of my favorite players. After the game, he just grabbed me and said, ‘Hey Coach, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.’ He made a point of it. How funny is that?”

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To learn when you might next get the chance to see Armando Bacot on television is as simple as checking the Tar Heels 2022-23 schedule.

It’s a bit more challenging to figure out when you might get the chance to see Armando become a TV star.

There still is no release date scheduled for the drop of “Outer Banks” season 3 on Netflix. The closest we can get is online speculation it will arrive in early 2023, which means it’s possible Bacot will have played his last televised college basketball game before we get to see how his character “Mando” fits into the teen mystery that has been a part of the streaming service’s offerings since 2020.

“Right after the Final Four, it was just amazing. I was pretty known, but after that a lot of it just skyrocketed – not just for me but for all of us,” Bacot said. “After that, Outer Banks – that’s a show that I watch. That’s what makes it so crazy, because I legit watch this show. I love it. It’s a great show.”

Josh Pate, one of the show’s three creators and a UNC graduate, texted Bacot about the possibility of appearing on the show. “I’m thinking: This can’t be real,” Bacot said. It was. Very. The initial plan was for an extended character arc on the series’ third season, but basketball obligations – and some other NIL deals – limited the amount of time Bacot was able to spend on the Charleston set.

“I had a lot of basketball stuff, so I had to sacrifice, really, my whole role,” he said. “I got a couple scenes in it. It was me and two other guys that were a part of this group. I’m pretty sure they finished up all the other stuff that I couldn’t do. It sucked not being able to do that, but I had to do all the basketball stuff. Basketball comes first.”

He had to interrupt his time on set, also, to attend the Kentucky Derby as part of a promotional deal with Town and Country Farms, a thoroughbred breeder based in, of course, Kentucky. Bacot’s other deals include such companies as Bad Boy Mowers, Fanatics Authentic and CapTech, a technology consulting firm.

All of this did not preclude him from working hard at his game, accepting the challenge of NBA evaluators to spend his senior season blocking more shots, hitting more jumpshots, showing a wider variety of offensive assets.

“There’s not a negative effect that NIL’s had on him. He knows those deals are there, but he’s almost businesslike in the approach,” Cornette said. “I liken part of that to his game. When Hubert came in, after being an assistant, you go, ‘Oh, Armando’s going to be hoisting a ton of threes because he’s got to prove that part to be a first-rounder.’ But this is a guy who says: Yeah, I’ll do that; I’ll be working on that. But I’m best down on that block with my back to the basket being a bully, defending, rim-running because that’s what’s going to make us win, and I want to win a title.”

There are coaches around college basketball who have expressed to me genuine concern about the NIL revolution, not because they’re against their players earning money but because they worry how they’ll spend it. Bacot understands, because he knows how money works.

“You are giving kids, essentially a ton of money, and it’s not like the NBA where you’re getting a ton-ton of money,” Bacot said. “A lot of guys are getting six figures, but to get in with the right financial advisers, there’s a certain threshold you’ve got to get. So a lot of times you’re managing it by yourself.

“Luckily, I get to work with a team that helps me, but I kind of have some type of insight on stuff like that. Obviously, I don’t know a lot, but I’ve got somewhat of an idea. I think it is kind of scary, because kids don’t know about taxes. And you’re going and spending too much money versus how much you should. So it’s definitely tricky.”

When Bacot says he deals with this by keeping all of his cash in his figurative wallet, it does beg the question: With all the money coming his way, he’s not alligator-arming when the check arrives, right?

“Nah, because that’s a business expense,” he said, then chuckled. “You know, I could write that off. I’ve got an LLC, so I’ll be writing that off.”