UNC legend Armando Bacot revealed transfer plans after Roy Williams retirement

While Armando Bacot will go down as one of the best players in North Carolina Tar Heels’ history, his career was almost cut short. The center spent five seasons with the program, taking advantage of that extra COVID-19 year, and putting his name in the record books.

But the retirement of Roy Williams following his sophomore season almost saw Bacot transfer as he explained on Theo Pinson’s Run Your Race podcast.

“Going into my junior year, it’s funny because I was going to transfer after my sophomore year,” Bacot said . “I had that great year but like coach [Roy] Williams had left. Remember he had said he was leaving on April Fools. But I kind of had an idea before. I had to keep it quiet. Nobody else knew.”

The program gave Bacot a heads up on Williams’ pending retirement, hoping to keep him in Chapel Hill and build around him.

“I was a building block for that next team because they knew I was going to leave,” Bacot said. “So, I was going to go to VCU, which is crazy to think. So then coach [Hubert] Davis is named the coach and coach Davis recruited me, that was the guy who always had a hand on my shoulder when I was down my freshman year, always encouraging me. So when coach Davis said he was coming, it was a wrap. I knew I was going to stay at Carolina.”

The hire of Davis kept Bacot around at UNC for a few more years and right away it paid dividends as he helped lead the program to the Final Four.

It’s hard to think where this program would have been at the past few years if Bacot did end up transferring out. Thankfully he didn’t.

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