The Citadel Head Coach Duggar Baucom is a Mad Scientist and Coaching Genius

The Citadel Head Coach Duggar Baucom

If there’s a mad scientist/genius basketball coach in the Southern Conference, it’s probably The Citadel's Duggar Baucom.

Baucom does things a little different at The Citadel not only because he has to at a military school to keep up with the Jones’ in the SoCon, but also because he wants to.

His exciting brand of basketball has captivated Southern Conference audiences at both VMI and The Citadel, while driving opponent head coaches and assistants crazy.

That’s because the Bulldogs play an up-tempo, unconventional style of basketball that’s hard to prepare for on both ends of the floor.

During his three years as the head coach at The Citadel, the Bulldogs have ranked in the Top 20 in scoring, top five in three-point field goals made, top three in three-point field goals made per game and top three in three-point field goals attempted.

However, when you ask opposing head coaches around the SoCon about the most frustrating thing about playing against Baucom-coached teams, almost in unison they mention defense. Now, peruse the NCAA statistics, and The Citadel won’t show up on the first seven pages of the NCAA statistics for scoring defense. That’s because The Citadel ranked 350th out of 351 teams in scoring defense last season, allowing 88.1 PPG.

However, there’s a method to Baucom’s madness, and it doesn’t necessarily have to do nullifying scoring, as it does with causing confusion and creating extra possessions. The style of defense helps equalize the game, and helps put The Citadel on a level court with some of the best in the SoCon.

After all, the Bulldogs recorded wins over the four of the top five teams in the SoCon last season, defeating Wofford (80-78), Furman (100-92, OT) and won on the road at Mercer (76-74) and at East Tennessee State (84-82).

“That’s a compliment that other people think that and our numbers won’t always show that, but we don’t feel like we’re going to match up man-for-man just to play one type defense, like we’re never gonna be 15 up where we can lock you up whether we’re playing man or zone so we have a tendency to change things up, and sometimes we’ll do that in the same possession, which I don’t know, maybe I’m one of the two coaches that’s crazy enough to do that, Baucom said, and they say desperate people do desperate things (he chuckled as he said those words). It’s become our identity, we play fast on offense and give you multiple looks on defense.”

Had the Bulldogs been more consistent towards the lower half of the league, The Citadel would have finished much better than their 11-21 overall record and 5-13 mark in the league, which saw them just miss out on a bye in the conference tournament, as the top six teams don’t have to play on the first day in Asheville. The Bulldogs finished eighth last season in the 10-team league, but there’s reason to believe they’ll be among the top six with more consistency this season.

“We played well against the upper half of the league, with the exception being UNCG, but we didn’t perform very well against the lower half of the league. We got swept by Western, and got swept by VMI and swept by Samford, so this year I hope we can be a little more consistent, but you know we showed some glimpses last year, but we weren’t as consistent as I wanted us to be.”

“UNCG is consistent. Wes [Miller] has done a good job of collecting all the right pieces, and they’ll be good again this year, and I think they’re going to be the class of the league once again. The SoCon has been as good as its ever been the last two years RPI-wise (Baucom chuckles) and that’s not good for us. ”

The rigors of coaching at a military school can be tough, and many times, a coach at those programs gets thrown a curve ball, such as a guy de-committing or leaving early to transfer out of the program.

It’s happened nearly every year to Baucom, whether it was at his previous employer, Virginia Military Institute, or The Citadel. In early December last year, 2016-17 SoCon Freshman of the Year Preston Parks decided he wanted to transfer out of the program, and then just after the 2017-18 campaign concluded, lightning quick point guard Frankie Johnson decided to transfer to Wingate.

“Can you believe that when I was at VMI I had Jon Elmore and Q.J. Peterson (led the SoCon in scoring as a junior and senior) as my backcourt to start the year. Jon Elmore [Guard at Marshall and son of former VMI standout Gay Elmore], who has led Conference USA in scoring and assists the past two years. and Jon would have been freshman of the year in the SoCon hands down that year, but Elmore ended up going to a bigger program and Peterson had to take a medical furlough in December and go back home, and that was our first year in the SoCon in 2014-15, so that’s life at a military school sometimes.”

But Baucom is optimistic about the upcoming season, and he should be with the return of three talented starters. All-SoCon center Zane Najdawi (15.5 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 42 blks, 21 stls, 40-of-108 from 3pt range, 40.7% from 3pt range) returns, along with sharp-shooting guard Matt Frierson (13.5 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 114 3pt FGs) and guard Kaelon Harris (9.9 PPG, 5.2 RPG)

“Matt played in China with Athletes in Action, and has come back with a lot of confidence and I am really pleased with his overall development, and Zane played this summer with the Jordanian National Team, and along with Dmitri [Georgiadis—6-9 freshman forward/played this summer for Romanian U-20 National Team], so those guys, even though they weren’t on campus, got a lot of international play, and that’s how we play anyway, we try to spread you out.”

The Bulldogs added a couple of newcomers via the transfer route during the off-season, picking up both guard Lew Stallworth, who transferred in from UT Rio Grand Valley, and guard/forward Connor Kern, who comes to The Citadel from Arkansas State.

“When you’re trying to change the culture, at a military school, even when I was at VMI, it’s sometimes hard to get guys to be leaders, and not that we had bad leadership before, but when it comes to getting in the gym and all of all of the responsibilities and work just being at a military school brings with it, one of the things I’ve most been pleased with this during the off-season is our work ethic."

"We chart every shot we make. They put it up on a board themselves and peer pressure can be a great thing. If Matt gets in their and getting 400 makes a day, then Kaden Rice feels like he needs to get in there and Kaelon Harris feels like he needs to get in there, so that helps.”

I saw The Citadel in person last year when they played Furman, and it was even the casual college basketball follower to see that Baucom has got this program well on its way to reaping the kind of success it hasn’t experienced before in the very near future. Maybe that’s how a mad scientist works. He works until he creates the right elixir for whatever he’s trying to accomplish, and call it what you want to, but Baucom has finally created a swagger at The Citadel in hoops, and they have the right mix of ingredients to be successful sooner rather than later in the SoCon.

His methods may be unconventional, but they allow the Bulldogs to be a factor in the SoCon, and that’s all that matters. He might just be more genius than, as he said of himself, crazy. The definition of a genius coaching scientist.

It was a pleasure to interview him, and I look forward to talking with him again during hoops season!

A Game To Remember

A Look Back at the 2009 SoCon Tournament Semifinal Clash Between College of Charleston and Davidsson

Obviously, just like in football, a lot has changed on the SoCon hardwood in the past decade.

The 2008-09 season was Stephen Curry’s junior campaign as a Davidson Wildcat, and it would be he and the Wildcats that would go on to claim the 2008-09 regular-season title, but the Wildcats’ bid to capture its fourth-straight conference tournament title was ended by Andrew Goudelock and the College of Charleston Cougars.

The Davidson run was ended one game early in the semifinals of the tournament, as the Cougars posted a 59-52 win at Chattanooga’s McKenzie Arena to produce what was an unforeseen upset in the conference tournament, and it would ultimately mark the final game for Curry against Southern Conference competition, as he would make himself officially eligible for the NBA Draft a year earlier following the season.

In the championship game, homestanding Chattanooga and College of Charleston would contest the SoCon title game, with the Mocs able to hold off Bobby Cremins’ Cougars, with an 80-69 win in the title game. While the College of Charleston and Davidson are no longer part of the Southern Conference, they put on a show that particular March weekend in the Scenic City.

 The semifinal meeting between the two was epic and one that will go down in the SoCon annals as one most will never forget. After all, the game featured two of the league’s top scorers of all time, in Davidson’s Curry and Charleston’s Goudelock. Curry finished his career in just three years at Davidson, but ended his career as the league’s top all-time scorer with 2,635 points, while Goudelock finished out his career for the Cougars by scoring the third-most points in league history, with 2,571-career points in his time in the Holy City.

The semifinal matchup between the Wildcats and Cougars also offered one between two of the most legendary head coaches to ever set foot on the Southern Conference hardwood sidelines, in Charleston’s Cremins and Davidson’s Bob McKillop.

Cremins would employ the services of a player that would become known around the league as “The Curry Stopper” and that came in the form of 6-7 combo guard/forward Antwaine Wiggins. Wiggins, with his long arms and tremendous athelticsm and prowess defensively, was able to force Curry into tough shots all afternoon, giving the Cougars more than a chance at an upset. Wiggins and CofC’s defense would make the game into a slugfest.

For the game, Wiggins would be responsible for holding Curry to 20 points on just 5-of-18 shooting from the field and a paltry 2-for-11 from three-point land, which were obviously well below his shooting standards. Because of such struggles for Curry and the Wildcats, College of Charleston held Davidson to just 31.6% shooting (18-for-57) from the field.

Curry was one of two Wildcats in double figures in the loss, with the other being Ben Allison, who posted
12 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 from the free throw line.

The Cougars, who didn’t shoot the ball that well from the field, connecting on just 32.8%  of their shots from the field, but did have three players score in double figures in the contest, with diminutive guard Tony White, Jr. leading the way with 17 points, while Donovan Monroe added 13 points and four boards off the bench.

While Goudelock, who scored well under his season average of 16.7 PPG with 12 points, expended the kind of injury on the defensive end switching on and off Curry, as Cremins and the Cougars plenty to think about throughout the game. In one particular instance in the opening half of play of the contest, Goudelock helped set the tone for game.

After Curry stole the ball from Goudelock and appeared to be on his way in for an uncontested layup, Goudelock chased down curry from a little beyond mid-court, and at the right moment swatted the Curry delivery off the backboard. Setting the defensive tone for the rest of the way for the Cougars.

It would be a basketball game that had everything the Southern Conference administration and fans could hope for. A raucous atmosphere on both sides, and though it was just a semifinal game, had all the drama, intensity and ambiance of a championship tilt. While Goudelock’s block may have energized the crowd and even got the neutrals on the Cougars side, the path to victory on that early March evening for the Cougars was not as simple as you might think, as the game featured its share of twists and turns on both sides.

For Davidson, it had an RPI in the mid-50s, however, a loss in the SoCon semifinals for the Cougars probably spelled N-I-T for the Wildcats--even with a player of Steph Curry’s ilk. One thing Charleston seemingly had plenty of in its back pocket on this evening was confidence. After all, early in the 2008-09 season, the Cougars had done enough to snap Davidson’s 43-game homecourt SoCon winning streak a month earlier, handing the Wildcats a 77-75 loss at Belk Arena, and it was Wiggins, who held Curry to just 1-of-12 shooting in the second half of play to preserve such a win, and that included blocking Curry’s potential game-winning triple attempt.

This time, the Wildcats were keen on exacting revenge against the Cougars in the third matchup between the two. After all, Charleston handed Davidson one of only two conference losses it had suffered all season. The Wildcats seemed to sitting pretty at the half, holding a 29-20 intermission advantage. But the Cougars had made the game a grinder--the kind they had been accustomed to winning all season, and that, at least, gave them a shot in the second half.

It would be Goudelock and the Cougars that would immediately throw the opening punch of the second half, as back-to-back threes had all of the sudden gotten Charleston within a bucket, trailing 31-29.

With the momentum now fully in its corner, Charleston used an 8-0 run moments later to make give the  Cougars a 40-33, and a look of concern started to spread across the faces of the huge throng of fans on hand from Davidson, as the Cougars assumed a 40-33 lead. All told, Charleston had run off a 20-4 run to open the second half. In the second half of the contest, the Cougars were simply awesome on the defensive end of the floor, holding the Wildcats to just 8-for-28 shooting from the field, and just 23 points.

The Wildcats trailed the contest 51-48 with 4:17 remaining, but would misfire on four attempts from three-point range over the next 2:58, which proved crucial in helping the Cougars cling to a lead and weather a storm that seemed inevitable for Davidson.

Charleston contiued to lead the remainder of the way. Up 53-50 with 1:04 remaining in the contest, it was a clinic put on by Goudelock and White, Jr. down the stretch to help Charleston produce the upset ad move on to the title game.

It was the end of the NCAA Tourament road for Davidson and Curry. The Wildcats would end up qualifying for the National Invitational Tournament. Both teams ended the epic semifinal clash in front of nearly 6,000 at the Roundhouse with identical 26-7 records.

The game between College of Charleston and Davidson in the 2009 league tournament was one of the best in the league’s postseason party in the modern era, yet neither team would capture the title. It will be a night Cremins and CofC fans will not soon forget, however.