Dwayne Bacon tied
Victory margin Seminoles’ largest in ACC play
a career-high with 29 points and No. 15 FSU reached the 20-win mark as it rolled past Clemson 109-61.
TALLAHASSEE — Leonard Hamilton wishes he could bottle up Florida State’s performance so he can sprinkle it on his players during the final month of the regular season.
You can’t blame him after the Seminoles made 17 3-pointers and scored 35 points off 22 turnovers en route to its largest victory in Atlantic Coast Conference history on Sunday.
Dwayne Bacon tied a career high with 29 points to lead No. 15 FSU to a 109-61 blowout win over Clemson in front of an announced crowd of 10,868 at the Donald L. Tucker Center to eclipse the Seminoles’ previous largest triumph margin in conference play — 36 over Virginia in 1994.
Florida State (20-4, 8-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) rode its leading scorer and received timely contributions from its loaded bench to win the 20th game of the season at the earliest point in program history.
“We’re getting close to being who we are,” Hamilton said. “We’re a team that needs to play with that junkyard-dog mental-
ity in order for us to be successful. We got to get deflections and be aggressive with our defensive effort. We have to do all the little things.”
The rising Seminoles, who led by as many as 51 points, continue to make a statement in the ACC, sitting just behind No. 12 North Carolina (21-4, 9-3) for second place in the conference standings.
Bacon found his stroke early, scoring 18 points in the first half, finishing 10 of 14 from the field with six 3-pointers.
“I was feeling it from deep all game,” Bacon said, tying his point total from FSU’s win over Virginia on Dec. 31, 2016, that sparked a stretch of five victories against six top-25 ranked teams for the Seminoles earlier this season.
After losing by doubledigits on the road at Georgia Tech and Syracuse last week, FSU rebounded with two of its more impressive and well-rounded wins of the season against Miami and Clemson this week.
Hamilton said he challenged his team at halftime to continue playing with the same mentality that fueled an 18-point win at Miami and a 26-point lead at intermission against the Tigers.
Terance Mann scored 11 points with four rebounds and caught a lob pass from Bacon after a block from 7-foot-6 center Christ Koumadje to provide FSU with one of its many highlight plays in transition this season.
Starting guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes finished with six points and nine assists while backup C.J. Walker had eight points and six assists to pace the Seminoles.
“We’re getting close to being who we are. We’re a team that needs to play with that junkyard dog mentality in order for us to be successful.” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton
Koumadje had two blocks, backup guard Trent Forrest had three steals and forwards Brandon Allen and Braian Angola-Rodas made three 3-pointers each to put the game well out of reach in the second half.
“We’re trying to find a way to get ourselves over in that level that separates sometimes good teams from great teams,” Hamilton said. “We’re working very hard to keep this team in the moment so we don’t have one of those setbacks like I thought we did there a couple games back.”
The Seminoles won their 18th consecutive home game and will host NC State (9-15, 3-8) on Wednesday before road games at Notre Dame on Friday and Pittsburgh on Feb. 18. They hope their stout defense can continue to fuel their intensity on both ends of the floor.
“We just keep growing and keep competing on the defensive end,” Bacon said. “We can do this every night, we think. We just got to stick with our principles.”