Sunday, January 20, 2008
New, exciting day dawns for resurging Keydets basketball
Aaron McFarling
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LEXINGTON -- The line took two left turns. That's how long it was. It came straight out from the glass doors of Cameron Hall and took a left so as not to spill into Main Street. Then, it hit the corner of Main and Diamond and hung another left, crawling up the side of the arena, confusing visitors as they arrived.
"Is this the line to get in?" one man asked as he approached.
"Yeah," came the response from someone who'd already asked the same thing.
"Usually you can just walk right on up."
"I know."
Not this time. Not Saturday, when the VMI basketball team was trying to leap into rarefied air. Not when the Keydets, winners of seven of their past eight games, were set to take on North Carolina Asheville, winners of seven of nine. Not when sole possession of first place in the Big South Conference hung in the balance.
Sure, some of the walk-up patrons might have just been curious of George. No other team in the country has a 7-foot-7 post player, as the Bulldogs do in junior center Kenny George. Maybe that had something to do with the spike in attendance here.
"Maybe," VMI coach Duggar Baucom said. "But if they came to see him, a good basketball game actually broke out, too."
That's a lie. What broke out here Saturday was a fantastic basketball game.
There were no laser light shows during introductions, no smoke machines spitting artificial hype into the rafters, no exploding scoreboards, no silly electronic prompters telling fans what to do. Instead, there were 45 minutes of full-throat excitement, with VMI star Reggie Williams spinning and twisting in the lane for 2. Bulldogs reserve Sean Smith catching and releasing from the corner for 3. There were teams trading baskets, fans going hoarse, chants of "AIR BALL!" and "V-M-I" ricocheting off the hills until they reached Buena Vista.
And then it ended. UNCA escaped with a 90-87 win in overtime. Everyone caught their breath, sang the alma mater and headed home.
A disappointing loss for the hosts? No question. But this day was bigger than that. The energy and atmosphere sent a signal that the VMI basketball team -- on pace for its first winning season since 1998 -- has become a can't-miss attraction in Lexington.
"We're a long way from where we were two years ago, I can tell you that," said Baucom, who went 7-20 in his first season and fell to 10-7, 2-1 Saturday. "A long way from that. But that's a credit to our guys. They bought in. They're literally one free throw from being 3-0 in the Big South. VMI hasn't been there since the '70s.
"It's just sad to send 4,000 people home disappointed."
Actually it was 4,219 people, the third-largest crowd in 26-year-old Cameron Hall. But fans got plenty for their money. VMI, the highest-scoring team in the nation, shot 56 percent from the field, dove after loose balls and challenged the biggest shots, including the clutch 3-pointer that the Bulldogs' K.J. Garland hit with 2 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime.
"It's been a while since VMI's played in a game like that," Keydets guard Christian Hunter said. "The atmosphere was great. The crowd was just amazing. It felt like a championship game. You come out, everybody's got nerves."
It's time for the Keydets to still them. A week after beating conference foes Charleston Southern and Coastal Carolina on the road, VMI now must shake off tough losses on and off the court. Before the game Saturday, VMI announced that starting shooting guard Austin Kenon -- the conference leader in 3-pointers -- would miss the rest of the season for undisclosed reasons.
The challenge now is to make sure this day wasn't the season's crescendo.
"We certainly hope it's not," Baucom said. "Nobody -- not even our coaching staff -- expected us to go down and sweep last week. If somebody had told me a week ago that you'd be sitting here 2-1 in the Big South, one game back, I'd have taken it and never gone to Charleston and Coastal."
He would have. And these fans surely would have, too. Even the ones who only came to see George got a treat, as the big man dropped in the winning basket on a lob pass in overtime.
Fitting, perhaps. Even when they lose, the Keydets are giving people exactly what they want.
And long line or not, it's worth the wait.
