Since I recently finished my series on the ACC’s 100 greatest players, I’ve been thinking about Armando Bacot and where he might fit into that group eventually. Bacot has a chance to do some amazing things. Let’s start with this. Last season, Bacot became the first ACC player in 66 years to grab 500 rebounds.
ACC 500 Rebound Seasons:
- Dickie Hemric, 1955, 515
- Ronnie Shavlik, 1955, 581
- Ronnie Shavlik, 1956, 545
- Armando Bacot, 2022, 511
Bacot needs 498 rebounds this season to become the fifth player in ACC history to have 1500 career rebounds.
ACC Career Rebound Leaders:
- Hemric, 1802 (partially in Southern Conference)
- Tim Duncan, 1570
- Shavlik, 1567 (in 3 years)
- Ralph Sampson, 1511
Bacot also has a chance to become the ACC’s 43rd 2000 point scorer. He needs 699 points. For reference, he had 635 last year. So it could happen. He needs one more bucket per game than he had last year.
Let’s play out the best-case scenario. Let’s say Bacot is National Player of the Year, ACC Player of the Year, and gets to 2000 career points and 1500 career rebounds – none of which is farfetched. Where would he rank in the Top 100? I think he’d be in the 20s, somewhere around Mark Price and Shavlik, in that range. If the Tar Heels could win the national championship, also not farfetched, maybe he could sneak into the teens, into Mike Gminski territory.
If Bacot is ACC Player of the Year and first team All-America, even if he doesn’t do all those other things, he’s probably a Top 50 player, similar to a Shelden Williams.
It hurts Bacot a bit that he didn’t win ACC Player of the Year last year. With all due respect to Alondes Williams, I think that vote was questionable.
When is the last time that an ACC player as good as Bacot came back for another year? I think you have to go back to Tyler Hansbrough in 2009. Hansbrough’s play slipped a little bit in his senior year, but he still had a great year, and the Tar Heels won the national championship. We’ll see how things play out for Bacot.