UNC’s Armando Bacot took advantage of college basketball’s new world

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…