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| The Citadel Head Coach 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)
“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!
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