Armando Bacot, Cole Anthony on hand for NBA exhibition game in Smith Center

On Friday night, the Boston Celtics and the Charlotte Hornets played an exhibition game in the Smith Center. Five-star commit Armando Bacot and five-star target Cole Anthony were on hand for their official visits to UNC.

Bacot, a 6-10, 240-pound center from Richmond, Virginia, committed to the Tar Heels back in August, giving Roy Williams his second commitment of the 2019 class (the other being four-star point guard Jeremiah Francis). After making his decision, Bacot wasted no time in becoming one of UNC’s top recruiters.

Bacot has called Anthony one of his best friends and has made it his mission to get the consensus top 10 prospect to join him in Chapel Hill. He’s also been really going after other UNC targets Josh Green and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, both of whom will be playing alongside him at IMG Academy this year. Given how close Anthony and Bacot are, I can’t help but think Bacot had something to do with convincing Anthony to spend one of his five official visits at Carolina.

While there wasn’t any actual Tar Heel basketball going on this weekend (and thankfully the football team was playing away from Chapel Hill), the two got to witness an NBA preseason game between the Boston Celtics and the Charlotte Hornets. It was nice to see former Tar Heel and national champion Marvin Williams back in the Smith Center. And it was, well...interesting to see former Duke players Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum again. Hornets guard and former Kentucky Wildcat Malik Monk was also in the building and unsurprisingly received his fair share of questions about Luke Maye and his duels with the Tar Heels during his lone season in college.

In the exhibition, the Hornets defeated the Celtics 104-97. The Hornets were led by Jeremy Lamb’s 15 points, while Cody Zeller added 13 and Kemba Walker had 12. The Celtics were led in scoring by Jaylen Brown with 14, with Marcus Morris and Terry Rozier posting 12 and 11, respectively. The game obviously wasn’t exactly a great indication of what these teams will look like in the regular season, but it did give fans a nice early taste of basketball season.

For Cole Anthony, the trip to Chapel Hill was just his second official visit (Notre Dame was the first), which bodes well for the Heels. With Josh Green and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl having taken official visits last weekend, Roy Williams looks poised to keep his recruiting momentum going and reel in another elite class.