C.L. Brown, ESPN Staff Writer 7y

As Dwayne Bacon's game has evolved, so has Florida State

Florida State’s Dwayne Bacon still hits game winners. The difference between how he did as a freshman last season and how he has done as a sophomore this season underscores the reason he shunned the NBA.

Bacon thinks about the game differently now.

Flashback to last season’s 73-71 win at Florida. The Seminoles called timeout and designed a play to get Bacon the ball. His only thought with 10 seconds left was to score.

He did so with a pull-up jumper over Kasey Hill with five seconds left. The Gators advanced the ball, and Chris Chiozza got a decent look at a 3-pointer that missed at the buzzer.

“Last year, when I hit the game winner against Florida, it was some time left on the clock for them to come back down and get off a shot,” Bacon said.

He faced a similar situation at Virginia this season. Only this time, the Seminoles didn’t call a timeout. Bacon knew what to do.

He took the inbounds pass up the court and nailed a step-back 3 with just two seconds left.

“I wished I would have left them one second,” Bacon said.

His first reaction after the make was yelling and pointing to his teammates to guard London Perrantes who was across the floor. Perrantes did get the final shot, a half-court heave, as FSU escaped with a 60-58 win.

It may seem like a minor difference, but that’s exactly the point to Bacon. He has spent his sophomore season focusing on the little things that will make him better, and that includes knowing situational basketball.

“This one-and-done phenomena has kind of [taken] on a life of its own, and we kind of lose sight of the fact that 99 percent of all kids that go to college have to go through a maturing, growing-up process,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. “Dwayne just happened to be one of those youngsters that’s levelheaded enough to evaluate who he is, where he was and where he wanted to go. And his maturity level was such that he said I need another year to see where I am.”

Florida State’s rise to the top of the ACC standings coincided with Bacon’s maturing into a complete player. He could have been satisfied with what, by all accounts, was a successful freshman season.

“I came in, I averaged 15, but there were a lot of things I could have done to average even more points, or even do the little things better, where we could have won more games,” Bacon said. “I learned a lot over the summer from watching film off of last year, and that’s really what helped me to be better this year.”

From his review of last season, Bacon approached the coaching staff about fine-tuning his shooting technique. As a freshman, he shot 44.7 percent from the field and just 28.1 percent from 3-point range.

Assistant coach Charlton Young targeted Bacon’s tendency to have a wayward elbow that altered his shot.

“It was just like, every time I would shoot it, I would potentially change the form,” Bacon said. “This year, it’s really the same form every shot, the same routine every shot. Nothing different, nothing changes. And I hold the follow-through more than I ever did.”

It got North Carolina coach Roy Williams’ attention during the preparation for their game against the Seminoles. Williams’ called Bacon’s career-high 29 points in the low-possession win over Virginia an “off the charts” performance. Even in the 96-83 loss to the Tar Heels, in which Bacon shot 7-for-16 from the field, Williams said he felt like every shot he took was going in.

“His ability to shoot the ball from outside is much better than it was last year,” Williams said. “I don’t know if that’s factual by the stats, but watching the tape, it makes you feel that way.”

Williams’ feeling is fact. The 6-foot-7 guard is shooting 47.3 percent from the field and improved nearly 10 percentage points from 3-point range to 37.5 percent this season.

“No question about it, he’s improved in every area we’ve asked him to improve,” Hamilton said. “It wasn’t like he wasn’t improving last year. He decided he wanted to continue improving and that’s what he’s done.”

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