By the end of the weekend only 14 college basketball teams will still be playing in the 4 elusive postseason tournaments.
Four remain in the highly-hyped NCAA Final-4. Four more in both the NIT in New York City and CollegeInsider.com tournament, along with the final 2 teams in the CBI best-of-three finals.
No need to worry about traveling to Dallas or The Big Apple. Fifty miles up I-81 on Tuesday night, VMI will be hosting one of the CollegeInsider semis, where the Keydets will take on Yale for the right to advance to the tournament final against either Pacific or Murray State on Thursday.
The 7 p.m. tipoff in Cameron Hall on the Lexington campus will be televised nationally on CBS Sports and offer area fans a unique opportunity to see Mid-Major madness in person, front-and-center.
Make no mistake about it. Tuesday night’s matchup in VMI’s 5,000 seat arena will be a virtual circus of mayhem. The boisterous VMI Corps of Cadets will make sure of that, as arguably the best sixth man in college basketball.
And, if that’s not enough, Yale will be facing the nation’s top Division-1 scoring team in the Keydets. VMI’s signature style of offense is run and gun, with no letup from the opening tip to the final buzzer. As Keydet head coach Duggar Baucom puts it, “we race the ball up the court and shoot it before we can have a turnover.”
It will be the first meeting between VMI and Yale, but both bring a history of postseason play. VMI reached the NCAA Elite-8 in 1976 and Sweet-16 in 1977. Yale made the NCAA in 1949, 1959 and 1962, plus played in the NIT in 2002 and CIT in 2012.
This has been the unlikeliest of runs for VMI in postseason play, not to mention a home game in Cameron Hall.
After senior night against Radford on February 22nd, most thought it was time to wax the hardwood in Cameron Hall to prepare for next year’s campaign. When the Keydets lost to High Point 4 days later to drop out of a possible NIT bid, and fell to Coastal Carolina in the Big South tournament March 8th in Myrtle Beach, the season was presumed to be over for VMI and its three seniors.
Not so fast.
The high-scoring Keydets got an invitation to the CollegeInsider, but most connected to the VMI program thought this would be a road show for VMI in the 32-team event.
VMI passed the first test with flying colors, traveling to Buffalo, NY where they ran Canisius ragged in a 111-100 win near the shores of Niagara Falls. At that point, the VMI Keydet Club stepped forward with the $36,000 contractual host fee to bring the second round game to Cameron where VMI dispatched IPFW 106-95 on Saturday afternoon March 22nd.
After that win VMI head coach Duggar Baucom explicitly noted his Keydets would go back on the road for any further games.
Wednesday night’s stunning third-round win in Athens Ohio against Mid-American Conference member Ohio looked unlikely when the Keydets fell behind by 17 points early in the first half. But, the never-say-die gang from Lexington stormed back in the second half to shock the Bobcats 92-90. VMI told the CIT officials they wanted to host again and the CIT complied. VMI viewed the exposure for the school and its program on national TV too good to pass up.
VMI players are stepping up in all-star fashion. Senior D.J. Covington had a career-high 37 points against Canisius, then wasted no time topping that mark when he poured in 41 against IPFW. He followed with 29 against Ohio.
Senior guard Rodney Glasgow had 28 points at Canisius, was held to 13 against IPFW as the Mastodons doubled-teamed him, then responded with 30 against the Bobcats. VMI has scored 309 points in their three CIT games, an average of 103 per game.
Tickets remain for Tuesday night, with adult general admission $10 and college students (with ID) , high school students and children $5. Tickets can be purchased online at www.vmitickets.com or by phone at 540-464-7266.
Bill Turner