Virginia Military Institute's Duggar Baucom instituted a fast-paced scoring offensive system when he was hired as head coach in 2005.
It took a year for his Keydets to fully adopt the system, but the ensuing two years concluded with VMI as the nation's leading scoring offense. They averaged 100.9 points per game in 2006-07 and 91.3 per game last season.
Reggie Williams, VMI's 6'6" forward for four seasons, led the nation in scoring both years with 28.1 and 27.8 points per game.
Last season was Williams' final as a Keydet, and he is currently playing for JDA Dijon Bourgogne in France's Pro-A league.
Although losing Williams' contributions was a wound Baucom knew he would need to heal, his medicine was not too deep in the cabinet.
Chavis and Travis Holmes were honored as members of the All-State North Carolina team in their senior year in high school, and signed on as two essential pieces to Baucom's first recruiting class at VMI.
Upon entering the 2008-09 season, Chavis and Travis stood 664 combined points behind the all-time leading twin scoring duo. The two identical 6'4" guards from Charlotte, North Carolina have already posted a combined 97 points in the first two games of the season.
Kentucky was unable to beat the combined 46 points posted by Chavis and Travis, and the twins' 51 points nearly defeated Virginia.
These guys are spectacular basketball players and prolific scorers.
Playing as second and third options behind Williams during their sophomore and junior seasons, the Holmes twins put up impressive scoring numbers. Travis averaged 15 points as a sophomore and 15.6 last season; Chavis averaged 19.2 in 2006-07 and 18.3 last season.
They can each shoot the three-ball. Travis is a career 32.4 percent shooter from beyond the arc; Chavis is slightly better at 36.7 percent.
Without Williams on the team, the Holmes twins are the leaders of the rapid offense, and could each average over 25 points per game this season.
They will have the surrounding help of senior Willie Bell and sophomore Austin Kenon. Freshman Keith Gabriel has also scored has fair share of points in the first two games.
VMI lacks size, leading Big South coaches to overlook the Holmes twins and project Baucom's Keydets to finish seventh in the 10 team conference. Most of these coaches probably questioned their choice this weekend after VMI downed Kentucky and played Virginia down to the final minute before succumbing.
3 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
Jameson Fleming 7 months ago
Not a good sign for Kentucky when Virginia beat VMI by ten today and beat the Keydets at their own game. I'm still very impressed that VMI beat UK. I didn't think in a million years that upset would happen.
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Ari Kramer 7 months ago
It wasn't a real ten though. VMI was within 5 with less than a minute left. But yeah, it's not good for Kentucky.
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Randy Williams 7 months ago
A 10-point outcome in a game VMI plays in is similar to a 2-4 point outcome in a standard college basketball game. You routinely see 8-10 point swings in VMI games in the span of 60-90 seconds. The VMI-UVa game was tied with 6 1/2 minutes left and the Keydets missed a free throw to take the lead; they had the Cavs on the ropes but just ran out of gas, plain and simple.
UVa absolutely got sucked into playing VMI's game, just like Kentucky did.
On another note, Coach Baucom didn't bring this offense to VMI when he was hired. He created it prior to his second season out of necessity.
As the team was moving towards opening day of the 2006-07 season - Baucom's second year - three of its top players were kicked out of school for honor code violations, prompting him to switch from a traditional attack to give his suddenly smaller and less experienced team a chance. Thus the "stun and gun" was born. I'd say things have worked out pretty well. The back-to-back 14-win seasons are the first for the team in 30 years!
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