For the third straight game Saturday afternoon, VMI head basketball coach Duggar Baucom resorted to the 5-player platoon system.
The visitors from The Citadel must have thought they were battling the light brigade.
Reeling off a 31-10 run to start the second half, VMI held on to dispatch The Citadel 85-75 in a key Southern Conference matchup at Cameron Hall in Lexington.
It was the second contest of the season between the military stalwarts, with the Keydets looking to follow uo with their earlier 66-65 win over the Bulldogs in the All-Military Classic last fall in West Point, NY.
This time around, VMI didn’t allow things to go to a final possession.
VMI, with eight players scoring 8 or more points in a balanced offensive attack, took firm control after a tight first half that saw the Keydets use a late 8-4 run to take a 35-31 lead to the halftime break.
It was a stark difference from one week earlier at Cameron, when the Keydets saw East Tennessee State reel off the first 13 points of the second half before VMI clawed their way back to a win over the Bucs.
“it was just what we needed,” Baucom said of the strong second half start. “We used the two platoon system and we had five players off the bench come up big. Everyone got engaged. The guys bought into the system; just what we wanted to do.”
VMI was playing its third game without the services of guard QJ Peterson, who was previously announced as being on medical furlough and no longer enrolled at the Lexington institution.
Saturday afternoon after the Keydet win, Baucom confirmed that Peterson would not rejoin the team this season.
After The Citadel scored the opening basket of the second half, the Keydets lit it up from behind-the-arc. Three-pointers by Brian Brown, Christian Burton, Jordan Weethee, Julian Eleby and and Trey Chapman set the stage for a run that led to VMI leading by its biggest margin at 66-41midway through the second half.
Although The Citadel chipped away and reduced their deficit to single digits with :47.2 seconds left, it was too little, too late for a Bulldog comeback.
“it was a few mental mistakes late in the second half,” Keydet junior guard Tim Marshall noted afterward. “We started playing the scoreboard. But, overall, we got it right tonight. It was a team effort.”
Eleby led the Keydet attack with 15 points, including 10-of-13 from the charity stripe. Brown followed with 12, while Chapman added 11, with Weethee and Marshall netting 10 each. Phil Anglade and Burton both poured in 8 points in the VMI balanced scoring.
The Keydets hit 10-of-28 from behind-the-arc, including 5-of-10 in the second half surge.
Ashton Moore led The Citadel with a game-high 20 points, with P.J. Horgan following with 14 points for the Bulldogs.
Bill Turner
