Unlikely lift has Gators sharpshooter Werner back on target

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Billy Donovan was up on the stage Sunday, enjoying a blowout win over Bradley and combing through the box score, citing statistics and explaining their relevance. It was pretty typical stuff, really. And then he got to the subject of 3-point shooting, which led to a remark about Dan Werner.

"For whatever reason," Donovan said, "he seems to be a little bit more comfortable shooting the ball."

Dan Werner is now shooting in a lot spots where he would have passed before. (Getty Images)

And I found it.

The reason is a guy named Steven Santangelo, and what might surprise you is that he's not a shooting guru or coach of any kind. He's just one of Werner's childhood friends from New Jersey who was playing on YouTube this past summer and ran across a highlight film of Werner from high school. Santangelo watched it, linked it and sent it to Werner with no real purpose. But when Werner opened it he noticed the way he had been shooting the ball as a freshman and sophomore at Florida was not the way he shot it back when Scout.com described him as a high school prospect with "terrific touch."

"I was just checking my e-mail and I saw the highlight video," Werner said. "I saw that my release was different."

So he got in the gym and fixed it.

And he's been swishing jumpers ever since ... or at least making them at a much higher rate than he did in his first two years of college. Through two games, Werner is averaging 18.0 points for the 18th-ranked and undefeated Gators. More important, he's shooting 50.0 percent from 3-point range (5-of-10), which isn't bad considering he shot 22.4 percent from behind the arc as a freshman and 30.9 percent from behind the arc as a sophomore.

Cheers to you, Steven Santangelo.

"Me and my buddies used to go to every single game and watch him all the time, and I always knew he could put the ball in at any time from any place on the court," said Santangelo, a non-basketball-playing junior at Rutgers. "But then last year I saw him on TV a few times, and I could just tell that his confidence wasn't as high.

"I noticed that he was always making one more pass that maybe wasn't needed, where in high school he would've taken the shot. That's where I think the 30 percent thing you mentioned might've been in the back of his mind, that he was thinking 'Maybe I'll just throw this extra pass so I don't have to take the shot.' But now he's taking that shot again, and it's proving to be successful."

Indeed.

"I am a lot more confident out there," Werner acknowledged. "This time last year I was still trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and what Coach wanted from me. Now I am a year older and I know what he is expecting from me, and I feel really comfortable."

Werner's 3-point percentage will be something to watch going forward if only because the Gators will need him to continue making jumpers if they are to challenge Tennessee in the SEC East. As I wrote this weekend, Al Horford and Marreese Speights aren't walking through that door, which will mostly leave Florida attacking from the perimeter, evidence being how the Gators took 32 3-pointers in Sunday's 81-58 victory over Bradley.

Werner hit 4-of-6 3-point attempts in that game, by the way.

So again, cheers to you, Steven Santangelo.

Florida basketball appreciates the link.

And the help it provided.