Armando Bacot on why UNC fell short of expectations: 'I guess we just weren't that good'

After last year’s run to the national championship — and considering nearly everyone except Brady Manek was coming back — North Carolina came in at No. 1 in the preseason AP Top 25. Now, the Tar Heels are looking at a potential NIT appearance, and Armando Bacot offered an honest assessment of why they fell so far short of those expectations.

“Really, I guess we just weren’t that good,” Bacot told reporters. “It was more expectations from y’all than us. I guess we just really weren’t that good.”

North Carolina fell to Virginia 68-62 in the ACC Tournament Thursday, likely ending the Tar Heels’ hopes of an NCAA Tournament appearance. They entered play as one of ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi’s First Four Out in his latest Bracketology, and their chances of making the big dance decreased with the loss.

So, what went wrong? Bacot didn’t have the answer immediately after the game.

“I don’t know,” Bacot said. “Maybe, I guess, I don’t really know, honestly. That’s maybe a question I can answer maybe a week from now or something. I don’t know. That’s definitely something we all didn’t imagine. I guess we all just weren’t good enough, individually.”

Last season, North Carolina became the story of college basketball in Hubert Davis’ first season at the helm by rattling off an impressive run through the ACC Tournament and, eventually, defeating rival Duke in the Final Four to reach the national title game. This year, the Tar Heels went 1-8 in Quadrant 1 games and had a 20-13 record after the loss to Virginia.

Bacot acknowledged how much of the focus was on last season, and UNC fell victim to a “long hangover” after their run in 2022.

“I mean, I don’t know,” Bacot said of the contrast from last year to this year. “Really, the story of this year was just talking about last year, I feel like. That’s kind of all we heard from y’all and stuff we look back on. I think it was just an overdue, long hangover.”

North Carolina will now await its fate on Selection Sunday. If the Tar Heels don’t make the NCAA Tournament — as Lunardi predicted Thursday night — they’ll likely be in line for an NIT bid. Should they miss out on March Madness, they will be the first preseason No. 1 seed to miss the big dance since it expanded to 64 teams.