Men's Basketball

Dwayne Bacon stars for Florida State after bumpy road

Courtesy of Mike Olivella

Dwayne Bacon is the second-leading scorer on Florida State as a true freshman.

Dwayne Bacon dominated, attacking on offense and disrupting on defense as Jack Meriwether looked on. Bacon appeared the unquestioned alpha dog, vocal on both ends. Meriwether heard about Bacon’s inconsistency and occasional lack of defensive effort before attending Oak Hill (Virginia) Academy. What he saw then didn’t fit the narrative.

Meriwether, then a Nike recruiting coordinator, remembers Oak Hill coach Steve Smith telling him that Bacon played so hard, he’d have to pull him out of some team drills to make it fair. The team had 12 future Division I players.

Bacon finally had the attention that eluded him for so long. He’d jumped through hoops presented by “shoe game politics,” questions about his defense and those who criticized his female AAU coach, and into a starring role at one of the nation’s top basketball powerhouses. Bacon, now at Florida State (16-7, 6-5 Atlantic Coast), faces Syracuse (16-8, 6-5) Thursday at 7 p.m. His 16.2 points per game is second best for Florida State and he grabs a team-leading 5.8 rebounds per game. When he’s on the court, he takes nearly one-third of FSU’s shots, per Kenpom.com.

“By 9th grade, Bacon was so much better than everybody else that he didn’t need to play defense,” said Robert Gandy, who coached Bacon at McKeel (Florida) Academy. “He’d drive me crazy … but he’d go out and get five, six steals anyway.”

PhilKelly

Courtesy of Phil Kelly

 



Bacon didn’t enjoy basketball when he first started in 5th grade. He considered himself a football player. Still, he accepted Gandy’s invitation to play on the McKeel varsity team as a 7th grader. Bacon played a lot, but Gandy managed his minutes because, he said, he wanted Bacon to remain coachable.

By 9th grade, he quit football. He’d often text Gandy about opening the gym. Extra shots on the weekend, extra lifts in the summer. Gandy showed him the European cross-step on a Friday. He mastered it by Monday. The coach said he had players for three seasons who never quite got it. If Bacon ever wrote an article about himself, he said he’d title it, “Monster.”

“To be successful, you have to be a monster,” Bacon said. “You have to be focused always; be locked in.”

Bacon ran out of competition locked into Florida’s mid-size division of 4A.

That year, McKeel played rival Lakeland Christian looking for the school’s first district title. Gandy remembers drawing up a play down four with about two minutes to go. Bacon turned to him and said, “I got this.” McKeel didn’t allow another bucket, and Bacon scored six of the next 10 points to win.

Multiple coaches think this initial lack of competition led to inconsistent effort from Bacon. That led to later questions about his defense and team play from other AAU coaches and IMG Academy, where he transferred to from McKeel for his first semester junior year.

But the talent was undeniable. Diana Neal, coach of the Florida AAU juggernaut Showtime Ballers, left a McKeel game and called a recruiting agency. “I just seen the best freshman in the state,” she said. Another coach in attendance, Kenny Gillion, said he has coached more than 200 Division I athletes, including some NBA players. Bacon is the best he’s ever seen.

He conserved energy for offense. He wasn’t terrible at defense, but he needed to learn ... because he wasn’t challenged.
Kenny Gillion

Neal and Gillion left impressed by the physical, above-the-rim 6-foot-7 guard with handles, vision, body control and, more than anything else, the ability to score even on the toughest shots.

They saw something few else appeared to. No major recruiting sites ranked him and his name wasn’t widely known after 9th grade, coaches said.

Bacon joined Showtime under Neal, who he ended up calling “Godmama.” Rumors reached Neal that Bacon was “spoiled,” but she never saw it. He did everything asked of him, she said. FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton echoed that sentiment.

Neal played him at the 2-guard spot and worked on ball-handling, creating his own shot and pick-and-rolls. He improved, but Gillion said his ranking rose little.

Showtime had a shoe deal with Reebok, which doesn’t offer league play like Nike or Adidas. Bacon wasn’t invited to some major showcases as a result, Neal said. Gillion calls it “shoe game politics.” Some coaches and players criticized Bacon for staying with a female coach, multiple people said, and that she couldn’t get him proper exposure.

Bacon developed a catchphrase he’d always say to Neal: “Wait on me.”

After he transferred to IMG, attention increased, but he returned to McKeel for the second half of his junior year. For senior year, Bacon chose Oak Hill, which once produced Carmelo Anthony and Eric Devendorf. Meriwether noted that it’s difficult for an Oak Hill player to be underestimated, but that Bacon was “criminally underrated” by most.

Playing against the country’s stiffest competition, Bacon became more consistent. He learned defensive help techniques and how to contain the dribbler.

“Once they got his motor up to his ability, you couldn’t stop the guy,” said Meriwether, who saw more than 20 Oak Hill contests that season. “… He dismantled the other guy from the jump.”

That season, Oak Hill won a school-record 47 games, losing only in the national championship game. Bacon won team MVP. He climbed to No. 14 in ESPN’s recruiting rankings. Meriwether saw his consistency rise as well as his presence dominate the gym. Meriwether saw him make multiple buzzer-beating, half-court shots at the end of quarters.

“He’s got an ego, but the right amount of ego,” Meriwether said. “… He could miss eight shots, but it doesn’t bother him on the ninth shot. When you’re as talented as him, that’s a big deal. He’s not arrogant to the point where he thinks he can do things he can’t do, but he’s the right type of confident who knows he’s really good. That’s why he’s been so successful.”

His confidence reminds Neal of NBA player Lance Stephenson, just not as “outspoken.” But it has allowed him to shut out critics, play with a female coach and become one of the nation’s best freshmen. It allows him to not care if some still see him as a one-dimensional gunner.

“People still probably think I can’t pass, or I can’t play defense,” Bacon said. “But I can.”





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