Virginia Military Institute coach Duggar Baucom was all apologies after his team’s opener last week against The Citadel. “They just made us guard,” Baucom said. “We call it a ‘red call’ when the shot clock goes under 10. It seemed like we were yelling that all night. You just have to deal with it. We were late on some deflections that probably should have been steals and that would have allowed us to run a little more. But we’ll have games like that every once in a while.” The Keydets may have pulled out a 66-65 victory on a clutch Trey Chapman three-pointer with 15 seconds left, but — while wins are important — the fact that VMI was held to 60 possessions in the game, the lowest number in Baucom’s 10-year career in Lexington, made Baucom swear to go back to the drawing board.

This might be the toughest season yet for Duggar Baucom at VMI. (Big South Athletics)

Baucom has made up-tempo basketball his identity throughout his coaching career, coming to VMI from Division II Tusculum a decade ago. He was under no illusions at how tough a job he would have to build a competitive program at the military school. He couldn’t offer many of the bells and whistles other Division I schools can, but he could show them how to play high-octane basketball. Baucom’s teams have finished in the top 10 nationally in adjusted tempo in the last eight years, and in the top two in six of those seasons, including last year when VMI won 20 games and advanced to the semifinals of the CIT. “Every day is a grind at a military school like VMI for the kids, and you have to do things a little differently as a coach,” Baucom said. “Recruiting is tough. We have great kids, though, and I wouldn’t swap them for anything. VMI has been very good to me.”

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1. It should not be a surprise that Katin Reinhardt has decided to transfer from UNLV to USC as was widely speculated the moment he announced that he was leaving Las Vegas. Reinhardt, who will have to sit out next season as a transfer unless he finds a way to get an exception that nearly every transfer seems to qualify, seems intent on playing point guard as he feels that is his best chance of playing in the NBA (we would argue that playing well would be a start). He should have plenty of opportunities to become a point guard on a Trojan team that lacks an established point guard. Having said that we are not sure that his skill set will translate into Andy Enfield’s offense as a point guard.
2. We might joke about how irritating conference realignment is, but it is nothing compared to the scourge that is publicly-financed stadiums. We have already seen many ridiculous stadium deals for professional teams with the most egregious being the one that was given to the Miami Marlins, but now the trend appears to be extending to college athletics. We mentioned Chicago’s plans for DePaul‘s basketball arena when it was first announced and now that more information is available Andy Glockner has taken a critical look at the deal. As Glockner notes the entire thing is absurd. We are not sure how the people of Chicago are going to put up with doing this particularly for a private university and we are not sure how the people affiliated with DePaul are going to go forward with this when they have a deal to play at a professional stadium for free and would not become the subject of public anger for having fleeced the city.
3. Many of our younger readers are familiar with much of Kentucky‘s history including the highs from Adolph Rupp to today, but they may not as familiar with the lows that the program experienced when it was put on probation by the NCAA. Many Kentucky fans still harbor a grudge against Eddie Sutton, who coached Kentucky when they were accused of committing violations that led to Kentucky being placed on probation for three years and receiving a two-year postseason ban. For that Sutton has become a pariah in Lexington, but John Calipari is trying to change that by extending an olive branch to Sutton and inviting him to return to Lexington as his guest. We are not sure how forgiving Kentucky fans will be, but if there is anybody who can convince them to soften their stance it is Calipari.
4. With conference realignment the newly formed/aligned entities have had to decide how they want to position themselves for their conference tournaments. The biggest battle is in New York City over the rights to Madison Square Garden, but the Southeast could also become a hotly contested area with the ACC and Big XII possibly looking at sites in the area in the near-future particularly if the ACC loses out on New York City. After initially considering a plan where they would hold the SEC Tournament in a permanent site it appears that the SEC has decided to go with a hybrid approach where they will play in Nashville in 2015, 2016, and 2019 and play in Saint Louis in 2017, Tampa in 2018, and Atlanta in 2020. The plan is still in the preliminary stages and the SEC still needs to negotiate with the potential host cities before anything is final, but it looks like this might be an initial step towards making Nashville the permanent home of the SEC Tournament after 2020 if everything works out well with them as a host city.
5. Speaking of conference realignment, the Southern Conference announced yesterday that it will be adding Mercer, Virginia Military Institute, and East Tennessee State for the 2014-15 season. Interestingly, VMI and East Tennessee State will be rejoining the Southern Conference after having left it in 2003 and 2005 respectively. We doubt that this move alone will have any effect on the landscape of college sports it will probably lead to another chain of schools shifting between conferences.

1. We loved the Carrier Classic, but we are also hoping that this doesn’t become some sort of fad where the game loses its appeal because there are so many variations on it. Having said that we fully support the idea of involving military schools in these type of games as they appear set to do this season for the All-Military Classic. According to reports, there is a 95% chance that the event will be held on the USS Yorktown this November. The event, which features Air Force, Virginia Military Institute, Citadel, and Army, would be held a day or two after the Carrier Classic, which is scheduled for November 9. Given the possibility of holding the event so close to Veterans Day this one seems like a no-brainer.
2. Brown is set to introduce Mike Martin, a member of the class of 2004, as its next head coach at a conference scheduled for this afternoon. Martin, who has served as an assistant at Penn for the last six years in Philadelphia after following Glen Miller there after Miller left Brown. The Brown administration is clearly hoping for a change of direction as the last coach–Jesse Agel–went 39-79 overall and 14-42 in the Ivy league during his four years at the helm. In contrast, Martin’s senior class went 39-17 during his four years as a player. With the rise of Harvard and the other traditional Ivy League powers it might be too much to ask of Martin to win a conference title in the next few years, but he should be able to make them relevant in the Ivy League again.
3. After a year wandering around Los Angeles UCLA will return to Pauley Pavilion with their opening game in the renovated arena happening on November 9 against Indiana State. In addition to having a set opener the Bruins also released the rest of their schedule for the 2012-13 season. Outside of the home opener the two other notable non-conference games are a trip to Houston to play Texas and a home game against Missouri. However, the thing that we are most looking forward to is seeing the re-opening with a loaded Bruins team playing at home again with what should be a star-studded crowd.
4. It might not be a mark your calendars type of game, but if you are looking for a game that the media will hype up this year you should be aware of a game on December 19 featuring Louisville and Florida International. In previous years, this would have been an interesting enough match-up that featured Rick Pitino coaching against Isiah Thomas, but this year it gets a little juicier as Rick will be coaching against his son Richard, the new coach at FIU. Despite some probably apocryphal or at the very least staged trash talk, we suspect that this game will be a dud as Louisville comes in as a potential #1 team in the country while FIU will be another entity left in the wake of the post-NBA playing career Isiah Thomas.
5. In a sign of its commitment to higher education, the Big 12 reaffirmed yesterday that it is content at 10 member institutions for now. Outside of the amusing fact that the Big 12 will have 10 schools while the Big Ten will have 12 schools in it, we do not believe for a second that the Big 12 does not want to expand, which is something that the conference even admits it would be willing to do if the right opportunity comes. The most logical option for expansion continues to be Notre Dame, which is hesitant to do so thanks to their own lucrative TV contract for football and the ridiculous deal they receive from the BCS, which they have not been able to take advantage of much recently. Of course, if and when they end up at 11 schools you can be sure that the 12th school will not be too far behind in order to balance out the conference.