In the final minute of the first half of a relatively sleepy ACC quarterfinal Thursday, Armando Bacot forced his 6-foot-10, 240-pound frame into the lane at Capital One Arena. How many times has the legion of North Carolina men’s basketball fans seen this? Here was Bacot, perfectly timing an errant shot, corralling the rebound. Here was Bacot, getting a second offensive rebound on a single possession. Here was Bacot, going back up, extending Carolina’s lead over Florida State.

And here was Bacot, coming back to the floor, letting out a scream that originated in his size 18 Nikes and worked its way through his massive frame.

“That,” he said, “was a lot of fun.”

Bacot isn’t always the Tar Heels’ best player as he was in Thursday’s cakewalk of a 92-67 victory over the Seminoles. Point guard R.J. Davis was the ACC’s player of the year, and this version of Carolina is deep and talented enough that a breakout could come from any number of sources.

But he is nothing short of a historic figure in college basketball. Hyperbole? Not close. Consider his path.

Bacot entered college in an era when the best prospects bolted for the NBA after a season or two — and he stayed five. His career spans a period in which players change schools as often as they change ends of the court — and he never contemplated transferring from Carolina. He arrived in college before athletes could profit off their names, images and likenesses — and he became a leading character in profiting off just that.

He’s a basketball player, sure, and a good one. But at 24, he represents so much more.

“When he got here, he was kind of a quiet, shy kid,” said Sean May, who won a national championship as a Carolina player and now serves as an assistant to third-year coach Hubert Davis. “But he’s grown from a kid to a man, really — not even really a young man. Especially with the business aspect of NIL — him understanding and really wanting to pursue it. A lot of the deals he has, he’s done himself. He’s [sought] these companies out.

“He knows what’s out there in the real world. He’s really big into finance, really big into the market. People would perceive that an athlete, that’s all he cares about. But there’s so much more out there that interests him. People gravitate toward him.”

Not that his career has been a straight line. Statistically, his best season was his junior year of 2021-22; he has not matched his averages of 16.3 points and 13.1 rebounds since. That March, Carolina — as a No. 8 seed in Davis’s first season after replacing Hall of Famer Roy Williams at his alma mater — made a surprising run to the Final Four, a run that included one of the most epic wins in program history: the national semifinal victory over Duke.

But in that win, Bacot sprained his right ankle. In the final minute of the national title game against Kansas two nights later, he rolled the ankle again.

“After my junior year, I was basically going to leave and go to the NBA,” he said. “But I just couldn’t get back healthy fast enough [to excel in workouts for teams]. That was really a big change. I had to rethink my career.”

He did that in more ways than one. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Bacot is still in college because of NIL.

“I have an opportunity to play for such a big brand like this,” he said, “and there’s so many lucrative things that come with it. It’s great.”

In that way, at the craziest time in college basketball history, he could embody a positive path forward. A frustrating aspect of following the sport in recent years has been player movement. From year to year, who’s to say who plays where? One of Florida State’s starting guards is Primo Spears, who began his career at Duquesne, played last year at Georgetown and is now a junior with the Seminoles. Examples abound.

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But Bacot shows what’s possible by staying put — at least at one of the blue blood programs. If he was going to be a second-round NBA draft pick or maybe languish in the developmental G League or be forced to play overseas, why not stay in Chapel Hill — where he could make more money? Particularly when the Tar Heels missed the NCAA tournament a year ago and when the pandemic interruption allowed him a fifth year of eligibility.

“I kind of went into last year like, ‘Okay, let’s go, one more year,’ ” he said. “And then we have kind of a letdown season. Probably still could have left, but I didn’t want to leave on that kind of note.”

Plus, he clearly loves college basketball — and loves Carolina. Bacot’s game isn’t the smoothest, and his upside as an NBA player is in question. But in a Carolina uniform, he plays with a joy that matters for the Heels.

Armando Bacot has more rebounds than any player in North Carolina’s storied history. (Greg Fiume/Getty Images)
“The way Armando has instilled his legacy here [is] as a player,” R.J. Davis said. “But just to have him as a teammate has meant the world for us. He gets us going. He’s our anchor.”

He was that Thursday, scoring 12 of his 14 points and grabbing seven of his 10 rebounds as Carolina surged in the first half. There is both a forcefulness and a subtlety to his game that comes with the one thing Bacot has on almost everyone this March: time.

“A lot of times with players, they want to be what they need to improve on,” Florida State Coach Leonard Hamilton said. “He is locked into being the best version of him — being physical, being strong, opening up lanes for his teammates, rebounding and shooting a high percentage. … He’s doing those little things that sometimes people don’t like to do. They call it the dirty work. But he loves the physicality.”

So along the way, he has piled up stats. Nobody in Carolina history has grabbed more rebounds, now 1,658 — 439 more than next-best Tyler Hansbrough. No one in Carolina history has more than his 83 double-doubles, tied for fifth most in NCAA history. No one in ACC history has played more than his 164 games.

Yeah, the fifth year. Still.

“That asterisk thing? That irritates me,” May said. “I don’t see that. He didn’t bring on the covid year. He played the games he was supposed to play. Where does he fit? I think he’s one of the best players ever to play here. He’s definitely one of the best ‘bigs.’ He’s different.”

That, maybe, is Armando Bacot’s legacy. He was a different player who had a unique career. And with an ACC title a possibility before the weekend is done and the NCAA tournament beyond that, it isn’t over.

“I’m having so much fun,” he said. It shows.