Ron Bradley has been on an ACC bench or around the conference’s periphery for a quarter-century.

He served on the Maryland coaching staff through most of the 1980s, first under Lefty Driesell and later Bob Wade. He went on to become head coach at Radford for 11 years, capped by an unsuccessful meeting with Duke in the 1998 NCAAs, the Virginia school’s first tournament appearance.

Bradley is in his fifth season working at Clemson for Oliver Purnell, his former Terp associate and the man he succeeded as head coach at Radford. He is a pleasant fellow and a knowledgeable basketball observer not averse to sharing his observations.

So a longtime acquaintance assumed he could engage Bradley in a bit of good-natured ribbing when their paths crossed this past summer. This was a false assumption.

The sore subject was Clemson’s execrable free throw shooting in 2007, at 57.8 percent the worst in ACC history. That inexactitude was a key reason the Tigers lost seven of their last 10 league games during the 2007 regular season and missed the NCAAs.

“Hey, you must be Clemson’s free-throw shooting coach,” said the acquaintance as Bradley entered a gym in North Augusta, South Carolina, at July’s Peach Jam tournament.

Bradley received the comment, glared, and kept walking.

Perhaps Bradley would not mind taking credit this season. Clemson, 12-1 as it prepares to host North Carolina on Sunday in the ACC opener for both teams, is making 65.8 percent of its foul shots, best at the school since 2001 if maintained until year’s end. That’s still worst in the conference, but a marked improvement.

Purnell, to his credit, has calmly answered questions about Clemson’s free throw shooting for years. “I’ve got all the answers down,” the fifth-year Tiger coach said amiably prior to this season.

“I think we’ve got a good chance to certainly raise our free throw shooting in a significant way,” Purnell said with conviction. “We’ve worked extremely hard with the free-throw shooting on a number of different fronts.”

The customary bases have been covered. The coaching staff instructs players on improving their shooting mechanics. Individuals are placed in situations that resemble game action as closely as possible, either in terms of pressure or fatigue, and required to make free throws.

“We’ll continue to work with the guys that are in our program that aren’t as good as they want to be or should be – James Mays, Cliff Hammonds, those guys – and I think they will be better,” Purnell said during fall practice. Not much luck there. To date, the pair of seniors are hitting just under half of their foul shots.

A recruiting emphasis also has been placed on bringing in good shooters. And the point guard duties are no longer handled by Vernon Hamilton, who made 54.1 percent of his career foul shots, including an even 49 percent last year as a senior.

The personnel changes, at least, are paying dividends. Terrence Oglesby, Clemson’s No. 2 scorer behind K.C. Rivers, is an 84.4 percent shooter at the line. Point guard Demontez Stitt leads the Tigers in free-throw attempts with 43 and has converted 88.4 percent. Even when you add inaccurate forward Jerai Grant (9 for 21), the freshmen who see regular action combine for 77.1 percent accuracy at the line.

The rest of the team has made 59.5 percent of its free throws.

Speaking generally, experts on shooting such as Florida State assistant coach Andy Enfield say the keys to improvement at the foul line are proper technique and willing repetition that converts lessons into “muscle memory.”

“It’s one thing to be taught something, and it’s another thing to work on something and believe in it,” Enfield said.

Enfield made 92.5 percent of his career free throws at Johns Hopkins, from which he graduated in 1991. That remains the Division III record, and tops the Division I mark as well. Last season, Enfield’s first at Tallahassee after working in the NBA and as an independent clinician and instructor, FSU led the ACC in free-throw accuracy (.758), setting a school record. This year, Florida State is making foul shots at a 78.5 percent clip.

“The only way to improve team free-throw percentage is to improve individuals,” Enfield said. “As a coaching staff, we made adjustments to about eight or nine of our players’ shooting techniques.”

He said players, pros included, want to improve. “No player’s ever told me, I don’t want to get better, I don’t need the help,” Enfield said. Many learn bad habits as youngsters, shooting with two hands while trying to reach the basket. “There’s a reason shooting’s so bad in this country, and it’s because players are shooting it the wrong way,” observed the son of a coach.

Not everyone has the same hand-eye coordination or depth perception, accounting for differences that cannot be entirely overcome by training, Enfield said. Still, he insisted, “it all comes down to their technique. The other thing is confidence. I always hear this – it’s all about having confidence. That’s great. You want your players to have confidence. But how do you get confidence?”

Chip Engelland III, the former Duke player (1980-83) in his third year as a shooting instructor with the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, agreed with Enfield's "muscle memory" observation. Confidence comes from working until proper fundamentals become second nature, he said.

Once diligent effort in practice yields the right balance, hand and elbow positioning, and follow through, it must be converted to “unconscious competence,” said Engelland, an 84.8 percent career foul shooter in college.

Engelland keeps “growth charts” on shooting by his pupils. He said he knows they’ve absorbed their lessons when they do not revert to old habits under duress, coming instead to the realization that “I’m good when I don’t even think about it.”

To claim a place as one of the ACC’s top teams, Clemson players must achieve a level of confidence and competence at the line that has proven elusive under Purnell.

“Obviously free throw shooting is very important, not only to winning games but to keep you in games,” said FSU’s Enfield, speaking abstractly but in a vein certainly relevant to the Tigers.