Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke
40 minutes of mania
While there's an abundance of structure in their lives away from the court, VMI's basketball team steps into a chaotic atmosphere once the whistle blows.
Aaron McFarling
LEXINGTON -- Whatever the heck was going on, Matt Murrer didn't understand it.
Those were his VMI basketball teammates out there. He was sure of it. And that was one of his assistant coaches, Daniel Willis, filling in for him in the intrasquad scrimmage 10 days before the season opener.
But something was strange. They weren't playing like his teammates. And Willis wasn't playing like he usually does.
They were playing like madmen.
Where was the normal set offense? The dump-it-inside, kick-it-back-out ball movement? The disciplined approach to finding and taking good shots?
Why wasn't head coach Duggar Baucom putting a stop to this hyperkinetic trapping and pressing and goofy shot selection?
Watching from a courtside exercise bike where he was rehabilitating an injured hamstring, Murrer focused on Willis, who was acting the most strangely of all.
"He was just jacking up every shot he could," Murrer recalled. "It was ridiculous. If they got offensive rebounds, they'd kick it out to him and he'd shoot it. He'd shoot like three shots on every possession."
What Murrer didn't realize was that Willis was a mole, his teammates the subject of an experiment. And what he was seeing were the embryotic stages of a system that would trip up records like dominoes, turn role players into cocksure gunners and grab the attention of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The Washington Post.
What he was seeing was the first day of the new VMI.
n n n
There are things you do because you want to and things you do because you have to. For second-year VMI coach Duggar Baucom, reshaping this team into the nation's Division I scoring leader was a combination of both.
He'd always loved playing fast. As a high school coach in North Carolina in the late '80s and early '90s, Baucom would take elements from the up-tempo, 3-point-friendly style that made Paul Westhead's Loyola Marymount teams a success.
More recently, he read and watched videos about Grinnell, the Division III college coached by Dave Arseneault that used hockey-style shift rotations to keep players fresh for 40 minutes of pressing.
And he watched with interest as coach Bob Johnson led Emory & Henry into the D-III rankings with a highly entertaining, run-and-gun attack.
The curiosity was there. All Baucom needed was an excuse to try it.
It arrived shortly before that October intrasquad scrimmage, when the coaches got word that they would likely be losing two starters -- the leading post player and the point guard -- to honor code violations.
Even before that news broke, the Keydets were lightly regarded in the Big South Conference. Coming off a 7-20 season, VMI was picked to finish eighth in the eight-team league by a panel of coaches, media and sports information directors.
"We were picked a resounding last," Baucom said. "Seriously, we were picked [41] points out of seventh. I think Birmingham-Southern -- who isn't even in the league -- got more votes than we did.
"We were waaaay down. But we needed to be, because we hadn't done anything to earn any of the respect."
Baucom looked around at what remained. No true post player. No established point guard. Just a group of long, lean athletes hardened by life on The Hill.
Let's go nuts, he thought.
The instructions he gave Willis before the intrasquad scrimmage -- which Willis then gave to his side -- were fairly simple:
Shoot the first open shot you get. Try to get 100 shots. Fire up 50 3-point attempts if you can. Crash the boards. Run on every possession. Trap on every possession, miss or make.
So they did. And the other half of the VMI team, unaware of the plan, had no choice but to go right along with the new tempo.
The final was 125-111. Junior forward Reggie Williams had a triple-double. And just about everybody had more points, assists and rebounds than normal.
"Guys," Baucom told his team. "This is how we're going to play."
n n n
The game was getting a little out of hand. VMI couldn't hit a shot. High Point kept beating the press. The Keydets kept running, but they were making uncharacteristic mistakes -- overthrowing long passes, missing open players, passing up good shots -- potential system killers.
This was a critical game in January against one of the Big South's best teams, and up the visitors' lead went to 12, then 14, then 17.
"Come on, guys!" a cadet shouted from the stands behind press row. "Slow it down!"
"Dude," the cadet next to him said. "There is no, 'Slow it down.' "
There isn't. Not anymore. For better or worse, these fans know this is how VMI is going to play.
And for the most part, they love it.
What they've seen is their little ol' team from a little ol' military institute become the nation's leader in points per game (102.5, which is 14 points better than the second-ranked team, North Carolina), 3-pointers per game (15), assists per game (21.5) and steals per game (16.2). And while that's come at a cost -- the extra possessions that accompany quick shots have helped drop VMI into last place in scoring defense and field-goal percentage defense -- there's no question the team is more exciting.
Ask anyone who saw 24 school records fall on Nov. 16, when VMI beat Virginia Intermont 156-95. Or anyone who saw the Keydets trim a late 18-point Princeton lead to 2 with a flurry of 3-pointers on Nov. 11.
Baucom considers Johnson at E&H his mentor on the offense, but the system is a hybrid of all the styles the coach long admired. Players rotate in five-man shifts a la Grinnell, playing 2 minutes each to maintain legs fresh for all the trapping.
"Our goal going into it was: Don't let anybody run any of their stuff," Baucom said. "All the stuff that they did in preseason, all the stuff that they did in practice to prepare for all the other 27 teams, we're not going to let them do it against us.
"They might make plays and they might make layups and they might beat our press, but we're not going to let them beat us doing what they do."
At 8-12 (1-3 Big South), the Keydets have already eclipsed their win total from last year. Of the losses, seven have come by five points or fewer. Baucom figures he wouldn't have even been in most of those games if VMI was running its inside-out system from last season.
Williams is third in the nation in scoring with a 27.3 average. Sophomore guard Travis Holmes leads the country in steals per game with 3.6.
But perhaps even more dramatic has been the development of senior guard Fred Robinson, who had a career scoring average of 4 points a game entering the season. He's now scoring 13.2 points per game, including 56 in the past two conference games.
"I've got a new lease on life," said Robinson, who is shooting 37 percent from 3-point range.
What Baucom ultimately hopes is that all of this will help on the recruiting trail. The national and regional exposure has made VMI a more recognizable name to prospects, he said. And if they still haven't heard of VMI, well, all he has to do is show them a stat sheet to perk them up.
"It does open up something," Baucom said. "It has helped us, I think."
The challenge of luring recruits to a military institute are well-documented. But Murrer, who less than three months ago was sitting perplexed on that exercise bike, said this is one aspect of campus life that shouldn't scare anyone away.
"Our life up on The Hill, up in the barracks, is so structured," he said. "You've got to be here and there at a certain time. Then you come down here and can do what you want.
"It's kind of nice in a way."
Still crazy. Still sort of new.
But nice all the same.
VMI playing with a frenzied attack
By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
January 11, 2007
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LEXINGTON - When VMI's offense runs perfectly, it's a thing of beauty.
A Keydet inbounds to point guard Adam Lonon, who already sees forward Reggie Williams open in the right corner. He rifles a long pass to Williams, who drills a 3-pointer.
Three seconds elapse from the shot clock. The ball never touches the floor.
For basketball diehards, watching a VMI game offers a reminder of the sort of high-tempo game Loyola Marymount used to play.
"But we don't have a Jeff Fryer," Keydets coach Duggar Baucom jokes, referring to the guard who hit 11 3-pointers in an NCAA tournament game against Michigan in 1990.
The Lions set an NCAA record that season by scoring 122.4 points per game, a number that may never be eclipsed. College basketball has become a coaching chess game with teams trying to minimize possessions with half-court motion offenses and incessant play calling.
You won't find that at Cameron Hall this season. No, Baucom actually wants to increase his team's possessions. He wants the Keydets to take 100 shots a game and attempt 50 3-pointers. No open shot is worth passing up. Sure, the Keydets are going to give up points. Lots of them. But as guard Chavis Holmes says, "one of these times, we're just going to outscore someone."
"This helter-skelter type of play, we think it gives us our best chance to win," Baucom said. "Our only chance to win, really."
The Keydets are lighting up scoreboards like no team in Big South history. They played one of their poorer offensive games this season Wednesday night in a 115-104 loss to High Point. They're averaging 100.6 points per game, and unless the Keydets suddenly embrace the old Pete Carril Princeton offense, they'll shatter the Big South scoring average of 83.6 ppg set by Winthrop in 1992-93.
VMI is averaging nearly 30 points more per game than it did last year when Baucom missed half the season recovering from heart surgery.
Baucom ran an up-tempo attack at Division II Tusculum before taking the job at the Institute, but he didn't fully implement the new offense - which borrows from LMU's old style and the run-and-gun play of Division III Grinnell College - until this summer.
Predictably, Keydets players were accepting of the change.
"Yeah, it's real fun," said Holmes, a sophomore averaging 20.7 points per game. "But we've got to learn how to win.
"That's our main goal right now."
VMI (6-11, 0-2 Big South) is one of the shortest Division I teams, so the system makes sense. It values speed and aggressiveness over size.
"It's like the (NBA's Phoenix) Suns," said High Point forward Arizona Reid, who had 32 points and 13 rebounds Wednesday. "They just keep running and running at you."
Here's how it works:
The Keydets play in shifts, much like hockey teams. When fully healthy, VMI runs two shifts, one anchored by Reggie Williams, the nation's second-leading scorer at 27.3 ppg. The other is anchored by Holmes and his twin brother Travis.
In practice, Baucom said, the shifts are not interchangeable. Players on Shift A never move to Shift B, allowing teammates to learn each other's tendencies.
That's fine, until someone gets hurt.
Forward Matt Murrer and guard Fred Robinson missed the High Point game with injuries, throwing the lines off kilter. Baucom said Williams and the Holmes twins rarely play together, except at the end of games when he wants as many scorers on the floor as possible.
With Williams and the Holmes twins forced to play extra minutes, they wore down, and tired legs contributed to poor 3-point shooting. The three combined to go 10 of 36 from beyond the arc. Williams scored 40 points, the third time he's hit or eclipsed the mark this year.
VMI accepts it will allow a ridiculous amount of points. The Keydets lead the nation in scoring but are last in points allowed.
The Keydets run a trapping, full-court press, and if a team is athletic enough (and High Point was), it will find ways to beat it with solid passing. That leads to a lot of 1-on-3 situations for the VMI defender left in the lane.
The VMI defense has three layers. The "trappers" get into a ballhandler and make him uncomfortable. The "thieves" try to strip the ball. The "goaltender" is the one left to try to defend if the trappers and thieves fail to do their jobs.
The thieves had a rough night against High Point.
"Usually we get deflections and get loose balls, which we try to turn into points," Baucom said.
High Point led 63-45 at halftime. In six games this year, the Panthers haven't scored more than 63 points.
"The hardest thing is closing out traps," Chavis Holmes said. "We've got to learn how to trap with our hands up and not put our hands down. We can't let people split the traps. We want to hustle and anticipate in the passing lanes."
Holmes and Baucom concede it will take some time for the Keydets' system to completely click. VMI has scored more than 135 points three times, all against non-Division I competition. The only Division I game in which VMI scored 100 and won was a 104-89 victory over newcomer South Dakota State.
The Holmes twins and Williams will return next year, and Baucom now has proof of a system to sell recruits. For now, he can be content with making Big South opponents uncomfortable.
"It's a completely different preparation than any other team," HPU coach Bart Lundy said. "We didn't run one set of our regular offense the last two days. You've got to prepare for the traps and the presses. You kind of throw everything out and start from scratch."
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
SCAR wrote:I used to be against this style of play at the division 1 level but I see where it can be affective. Duggar Baucom used to do this when he coached at Tuscolum to some success at a lower level. If you have the right type of players it can work or at least cover some of your deficiencies particularly in the paint. As far as wanting to play that style as a recruit, I would say that most players that like to run and fast break will LOVE to play there. If I am a big man, then probably not. Although they do have a true seven footer coming next season.I KNEW you would come around to my way of thinking!! And honeslty, how many "Big Man" are gonna want to come to many Big South schools or VMI for that matter. And do you know ANY players (except us old schoolers whose playing weight is a distance memory) who DON'T like to run and fast break? Remember LMU had success with this style although it didn't translate too well at George Mason. (The NBA experiment shouldn't count b/c that is a different game.) I love it at this level of play. It is the ONLY reason I am staying after the girls game saturday
Sly Fox wrote:The last time this offense was popularized in the Early 80s it generated plenty of copycats as coaches used the offense as a way to recruit kids they normally wouldn't get a shot at. Unfortunately, these kids wanting to play in this type of offense often proved to be undisciplined on and off the court.SLY my furry friend, I disagree. I am not sure how you can call ANY win a cheap win (look at OUR record) As for copycats, that shouldn't be the judge of the success of this style. Many people have tried, and failed to copy: The Triangle Offense, The Bob Knight Motion Offense, Chaney's Zone Defense, Boheim's Zone Defense, Tarks Amoeba Defense, The FLEX offense just to name a few. IMHO, this "style" has not been given a chance to grow and succeed b/c it IS so different. And believe it or not, does take a LOT of skill to teach and coach. I love it and hope he sticks too it.
Its a fad and will last awhile before fizzling out. If Duggar can squeeze some cheap wins out in the meantime then bully for him. But if you take a look at their record, its not been the overwhelming success some are making it out to be.
LUconn wrote:Seems like a gimmicky freakshow of an offense to me. Not a program builder. I assume they'll have a new coach in 4 years.That's what they said about"
Purple Haize wrote: That's what they said about"The difference being that those all stuck immediately. The run & gun has come and gone numerous times over the years. Its a gimmick ... not that there';s anything wrong with gimmicks. Especially when you are at a school like VMI where its tought to recruit based on the campus culture.
The Jump Shot
The Fast Break
The Forward Pass
The West Coast Offense
The Spread Offense
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