VMI basketball coach Duggar Baucom signs extension through 2018 

In perhaps the final major move of his tenure as VMI athletic director, Donny White officially has taken care of what amounted to a virtual layup decision.

White, who is scheduled to retire Nov. 15, announced Wednesday that Keydets head basketball coach Duggar Baucom has signed a contract extension through the 2017-18 season.

“Duggar Baucom is an excellent basketball coach ... he has energized the VMI fans with an exciting brand of basketball and I’m thrilled with the great young men he has recruited to represent our institution,” White said in a school release.

Talk about a no-brainer. Since being hired by White in 2005, Baucom has successfully resurrected one of the most moribund Division I programs in the country by winning a school-record 118 games his first eight seasons at the helm. During that period, VMI has advanced to the Big South tournament championship game three times. In the past seven years, Baucom’s teams have recorded more wins (111) than all the nation’s military service academies — Air Force, Navy, Army and The Citadel.

When hired by White on April 12, 2005, Baucom was a little-known coach coming from Division II Tusculum in Greenville, Tenn. Since, he has put VMI back on the Division I map with a high-octane, up-tempo attack that led Division I in scoring for an unprecedented five consecutive years from 2006-2011.

When asked Wednesday if he thought he would last this long at what had been a coaching graveyard, Baucom snickered and said: “No. But I’m fortunate they’ve kept me around this long. You never know when you enter into a place, but it’s certainly been a great eight years and we’re expecting big things this year.”

Baucom, whose career record at VMI is 118-127, produced his first winning club on post in 2008-09, when twins Travis and Chavis Holmes led the Keydets to a 24-8 mark.

“When I got my extension [Wednesday], the first text I got was from Chavis Holmes, who congratulated me and said, ‘You deserve it.’ I texted him back and said ‘You and your brother started this whole thing.’ And it’s all the guys since then, so that was awesome to get a text from him.

“Those guys started it and then we’ve had the Austin Kenons, the Ron Burks, the Keith Gabriels, the Michael Sparks and the Stan Okoyes. It’s just really been good for us.”

Baucom is anxiously looking forward to this season when the Keydets play their final campaign in the Big South Conference before moving to the Southern Conference next year.

Although VMI lost Okoye, the Big South player of the year last season, Baucom said he thinks this season’s club that returns senior linchpins — center D.J. Covington and point guard Rodney Glasgow — could be a special outfit with the return of forward Jordan Weethee, an adept 3-point shooter who missed last season with a knee injury, plus the addition of a six-player freshman class that the coach ranks as the most talented group in his VMI tenure.

“It’s a big class ... five of them are scholarship guys,” Baucom said. “This summer, they all showed signs of very good things. Three or four of them are going to receive significant minutes this year, I’m just not sure which three or four of them it’s going to be. They all certainly have the potential to do it and having Jordan back is huge. He’s a very experienced sophomore eligibility-wise, but he’ll certainly help us from outside and brings a lot of toughness and leadership, too.”

The six freshmen attended summer school this summer and are currently going through their first week of Rat Line matriculation.

“They’re going through cadre week now. That’s the initial phase of it right now, which is probably the toughest. I’m thankful for those six guys because I’m not sure I’m tough enough to do it.”

VMI will open practice Sept. 27 and will practice 30 times in the 42-day period before opening the season Nov. 8-9 by playing host to the All-Military Classic at Cameron Hall . VMI will play The Citadel in the Nov. 8 opener, then will face either Air Force or Army the next day.

“It’s going to be on ESPNU, Veterans Day weekend, we have a home football game [vs. Gardner-Webb on Nov. 9], I mean it’s going to be huge,” Baucom said.

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