'It's a quieter team': UNC men's basketball enters post-Bacot era at ACC Tip-Off

There is a big difference in this year's UNC men's basketball team compared to previous years' groups. In fact, there is no 6-foot-10 rebounding machine that commands as much attention off the court as he does on it.

There will never be another Armando Bacot in Chapel Hill. Thanks to his five years with the Tar Heels, his rebounding record is nearly unbreakable. And Bacot's gregarious nature in postgame interviews and other media sessions will be sorely missed by you and others covering Carolina. That's why the 2024-25 Tar Heels – the first without Bacot since Coby White, Luke Maye and Cam Johnson arrived at the Smith Center – have brought a different vibe to head coach Hubert Davis.

“It’s a quieter team,” Davis said Thursday morning at the ACC Tip-Off in Charlotte. “One of the things we're working on is … the importance of not having the same voice as previous teams, but developing a distinct voice for this team. That will come with time, but I really like the direction we’re going.”

In Bacot's absence, RJ Davis has taken over the role of team leader and declared himself the “old head”. At the team's media day earlier this month, the reigning ACC Player of the Year and first-team All-American noted how he challenges himself to be louder on the court.

“It would be very easy for him to stay in this place and lose contact with the others,” Hubert Davis said. “And his ability to reach out and connect the three freshmen, the three transfers, the four reserves and hold us together as a team was really special for all of us.”

“He’s a coach I can rely on,” RJ Davis said of Hubert Davis. “He put so much trust in (me). Sometimes I didn’t have that in me, but he instilled it in me…we built a relationship that went beyond basketball.”

Thanks to his ACC Player of the Year win last season, RJ Davis' No. 4 jersey is guaranteed a spot in the Smith Center division. Whether this jersey is honored or retired depends on the outcome of the coming winter and spring. If precedent holds true, the Tar Heels will go as far as Davis reaches; His incredible regular season led Carolina to a No. 1 ACC regular-season title, but he didn't make a single three-pointer in UNC's loss to Alabama in the NCAA Tournament.

That loss — and the Crimson Tide's appearance in the Final Four next week — has the Tar Heels wanting more. As Hubert Davis likes to say, his team is “hungry and thirsty.”

“I hear the doubt. I hear the criticism,” said junior guard Seth Trimble, who briefly entered the transfer portal in the offseason before returning to Chapel Hill. “I don’t really listen to it. But I still have a lot to prove for myself… There’s a lot of motivation this year.”

Motivation will be needed as Carolina faces a typically treacherous non-conference schedule that has the Tar Heels traveling to Kansas in just the second game of the season. UNC also enters a Maui Invitational field alongside Auburn, Iowa State and two-time defending champion UConn. And then there's old rival Alabama's visit to the ACC-SEC Challenge in December. No matter how cautious Hubert Davis is about his team, the rematch against the Crimson Tide will be a heated one.

A busy preseason schedule begins for the Tar Heels, starting with the Blue-White Game at the Smith Center on Saturday afternoon. And while the team may be quieter than in years past, there's no need to worry: The fans streaming into the arena after fleeing the UNC football team's game against Georgia Tech at Kenan Stadium will be for every Make a lot of noise.

Featured image by Todd Melet

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