UNC Basketball Alum Remains on Bench in First Summer League Game

The Utah Jazz have a pair of 2020-21 UNC basketball big men on their Summer League roster: Walker Kessler, who is entering his third year as a pro following a season apiece at UNC and Auburn, along with five-year Tar Heel Armando Bacot.

But in the Jazz’s first game at the Salt Lake City Summer League on Monday night, only one of those 2020-21 Tar Heels played.

Kessler, a backup to Bacot during his brief stay in Chapel Hill before nearly tripling his production as a sophomore and full-time starter at Auburn, tallied 10 points, six rebounds, two steals, and five blocks across his team-high 33 minutes in Utah’s 97-95 overtime win over the Memphis Grizzlies. The 22-year-old, Utah’s No. 22 overall draft pick in 2022, shot 3-for-5 from the field and 4-for-8 at the foul line.

The 24-year-old Bacot, who went undrafted two weeks ago but signed an Exhibit 10 deal with the Jazz for Summer League, probably would have come off the bench for mop-up duty had the matchup not been so tightly contested.

Perhaps UNC basketball’s all-time leading rebounder and double-double machine will hear his number called when the Jazz face the Oklahoma City Thunder, including Bacot’s 2023-24 Tar Heel teammate in 25-year-old wing Cormac Ryan, at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday (ESPN2).

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