Armando Bacot ties Tim Duncan for NCAA record in final game of career

It might’ve wound up as his final career game in college, but Armando Bacot made some history in No. 1 seed North Carolina’s Sweet 16 loss to No. 4 seed Alabama on Thursday. And it puts him in league with an all-time basketball great.

With a 19 point, 12 rebound effort on Thursday, Bacot recorded his 87th career double-double during his five-year career. That moves him into a tie in first place with former Wake Forest legend Tim Duncan, who held the NCAA record alone until Thursday.

In 37 games this season, Bacot finished with 19 double-doubles.

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And while Bacot does now match Duncan in terms of total career double-doubles, there’s an important distinction: Bacot had an extra year to play in college by virtue of the Covid-19 pandemic. Bacot hit 87 double-doubles in 169 career games, while Duncan did it in 128. That difference manifested in Duncan basically having a double-double in two out of every three games, while was closer to every-other game with a double-double for Bacot.

Bacot felt ACC teams had a chip on their shoulders this year

As Bacot explained, he knew about the perception of the ACC and believes that other teams in the conference did as well, and, because of that, he says that teams definitely played with a chip on their shoulders to get to this point.

“Definitely. You see it every year,” Armando Bacot said. “I think, especially since, like, 2018 when…and all of them left. I feel like the respect for the ACC just in general kind of went down. But you look at every year in the tournament we’ve always got a couple, multiple teams…deep in these rounds.”

“There’s a lot of stuff that goes into it. I think most ACC programs are playing a high-level non-conference schedule too, so I think that really plays a factor. I feel like other conferences might not be as strong or they’re kind of manipulating it in a way some sense.”

The four ACC teams to make it to the Sweet 16 are North Carolina, Duke, NC State, and Clemson. However, Bacot feels that there were even more deserving teams in the conference that were overlooked.

“This year was really crazy because you look at how great NC State has been playing and how great Duke has been playing. Clemson too has been great, but you look at teams like Pitt who’s beaten three or four of those teams that I just named. Also too, UVA, they obviously got out, but this year there were a lot of ACC teams that were deserving that didn’t get a chance to make it in,” Bacot said.

“Hopefully everyone sees after this year how competitive ACC basketball is and how good the teams are.”