Double Time (cont.)

Baucom (above) introduced an offense that is liberating from the discipline that governs the rest of his players' lives. "We come down from The Hill to practice, and it's a release," says Bell. Greg Nelson/SI

Robert Franklin Baucom became Duggar (DOO-gur) before he was born, when a relative asked his pregnant and overdue mother, Nancy, "When is that little duggar coming out?" It stuck. He turned to coaching as a career long after leaving UNC-Charlotte during his sophomore year to help run his ailing father's trucking business. In 1983 he became a police officer (and later a state trooper); in '87, a junior varsity basketball coach at his alma mater, North Mecklenburg (N.C.) High; and in 1991, a salesman for his sister's insurance business shortly after he suffered a heart attack.

"I was making more money in insurance than I had ever made in my life," says Baucom, "and I hated it." He did another tour at North Mecklenburg, this time assisting the varsity. On the bus ride home from a state playoff loss in 1992 he promised himself, I'm going to be a college basketball coach. Baucom was 32 years old, and it was a preposterous goal.

He re-enrolled at UNC-Charlotte in May 1992 to earn his degree in history and in the summers hustled for work at instructional camps. Upon Baucom's graduation in the spring of '95, Davidson coach Bob McKillop hired him as an unpaid administrative assistant. Baucom held four more assistant's jobs in nine years, only one paying more than $24,000, before taking over at Tusculum College in Greenville, Tenn. In 2005 he led Tusculum to the Division II tournament, bowing 91-88 in the first round to top-seeded Bowie (Md.) State on Bowie's home floor. After Baucom did his postgame radio show in a balcony of the arena, he was approached by a middle-aged man in a gray sweatshirt and baseball cap. It was VMI athletic director Donny White, who had just fired Bart Bellairs after a 9-18 season. "His team lost, but I loved their energy," says White. "I went up to Duggar in the balcony and said, 'Coach, I really like what I saw today, and, coincidentally, I'm a college athletic director who's looking for a coach.' "

Baucom went 7-20 in his first season, but that was hardly the worst of it. His first heart attack, on Christmas Day 1990, had been the result of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle is abnormally thickened. Electrophysiologist-cardiologist Lameh Fananapazir had installed a pacemaker (in 1991) in Baucom's chest to control his heart rhythm. It had been replaced in '97.

In January 2006 the pacemaker was upgraded to an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). What might have been another simple replacement procedure instead became an eight-month ordeal that included five operations in three states. Original electrical leads from Baucom's heart had scarred and caused an infection. "It was not a trivial condition," says Fananapazir, who didn't perform the first ICD installation. "He was quite ill, and he needed a procedure that has a high mortality rate."

Fananapazir installed a second ICD in August 2006. Baucom was again healthy but also changed in ways both large and small. "He was close to death," says Sherry. "So now he's full speed ahead every day, and there are things that just don't matter to him anymore. He used to be meticulous about dressing for a basketball game. Jacket and tie. I used to have to iron his dry cleaning. Now his uniform is a sweater vest and polo shirt because that's what he's comfortable wearing."

Baucom's teams had historically played fast, but now they would play even faster. He watched his old Westhead-Loyola tapes. He called Walberg. (And he lost two starters to honor code violations on the eve of the 2006-07 season, making it perilous to play conventionally.) The Keydets won 28 games in two years before taking off this year. "I went 7-20, and I didn't want to ever experience that again," says Baucom. "Then I almost died. Maybe somebody who goes through that isn't afraid to take risks."

VMI has languished, for most of its 101 seasons, in basketball futility. The Keydets went 10-6 in 1940-41 and didn't have another winning season until 1975-76, when they went to the NCAA Elite Eight, followed by the Sweet 16 in '77. Those teams -- which included five members of VMI's Hall of Fame -- proved aberrations. The school had finished with just three winning records between the NCAA teams and this year's.

*****

VMI is the fourth-smallest Division I basketball program in the NCAA (although the enrollment is more than 90% male, a mitigating statistic). Moving from the Southern Conference to the Big South in 2003 -- not a universally popular migration on campus because many missed the tradition of the old league -- softened the schedule. But the program's biggest hurdle remains the military culture, which scares off many recruits and leads to an attrition rate of more than 20% among the student populace. "If North Carolina and Duke thought that marching in parades was good for winning, they'd be marching in parades," says Bellairs, who went 116-191 in 11 seasons. "Recruiting is very tough. You might get one recruit in five to sign, and then you have to keep rerecruiting them once you get them on the post."

The toughest year is the first. The Ratline is among VMI's most entrenched traditions, and its most demanding. Each Rat is assigned a senior mentor, called a Dyke (named for the VMI dress uniform, which Rats would traditionally help the senior put on). Rats endure three-mile runs carrying a rifle and "sweat parties" in which they do exercises -- while getting verbally abused by upperclassmen -- in a sweltering gymnasium. Upon entering the barracks courtyard Rats must "strain," taking an exaggerated shoulders-back posture while turning square corners and running up metal stairs. They are responsible for caring for their Dyke's bed every day, rolling up the mattress and moving the wooden frame off the floor. Rats can be stopped at any time and told to do push-ups or other exercises.

"My first week I must have done 2,000 push-ups," says freshman Keith Gabriel, a 6' 2" wing who was averaging 16.4 points through Sunday. "My knees hurt from running up the stairs in flat shoes. The whole thing is wild."

Says point guard Ron Burks, a fellow Rat, "I had no idea what I was getting into. It's hard playing basketball and then taking what they dish out on the Hill."

Last Saturday was Rat breakout at VMI, in which the Rats endure one long, final day of abuse and then are officially made members of the fourth class. But breakout does not transform VMI into Pepperdine. It is a military school for all corpsmen and women. Marching to breakfast and dinner is mandatory. Alcohol is prohibited in the barracks. "Not much fun," says sophomore guard Austin Kenon. "You don't get to wear regular clothes, watch TV or sleep in a comfy bed. You don't get your own bathroom. You call your friends [at other schools], and they're at a party."

Athletes are rarely exempted from routine, and that's not likely to change. "With the right coaches you can make the system work for you," says Peay. "It's fundamental to our reputation to do it the VMI way. Don't coddle athletes, make them leaders. And if they're not going to adhere to the standards on the Hill, they're not going to play."

*****

Chavis and Travis Holmes, willowy 6' 4" tweeners, haven't merely survived. By combining for 47 points against High Point on Jan. 24 they became the highest-scoring twins in NCAA history, surpassing the 3,252-point total of former Keydets guards Damon and Ramon Williams. Like many of VMI's players, the Holmeses bloomed late. Their father, Kenny, a heating and air-conditioning supervisor, once bartered a baby crib to a paving contractor to get the family's driveway widened so that the twins could have more shooting options. Yet as freshmen they were cut from the junior varsity team at Charlotte's Vance High, and as juniors they played sparingly on Vance's state championship team.

With few college options, the twins transferred to the private Christ School in Asheville, where they were reclassified as juniors and played in two state championship games, winning the second. "They developed physically at our place," says Christ School coach David Gaines. "But they were also throwbacks, and that's what I told Division I schools. They understood how to play the game and how to win."

Baucom offered scholarships to both twins -- the only Division I school to package them -- on his first day on the job. They were taken aback after touring the post. "I thought the barracks looked like a prison," says Chavis, "but we really wanted to play together." They had never been coddled; during one high school summer Kenny had taken his sons on a power-washing job in the North Carolina heat, to show them what type of work is available without a college degree. Both brothers are on track to graduate in four years.

They are the backbone of an eight-man rotation that is almost entirely made up of guards. (The biggest regular is 6' 7".) Gabriel is an explosive 6' 2", 180-pounder with a mousetrap-quick lefthanded release on his three. Kenon is just 5' 11", but with a lethal deep jumper that he releases off his right shoulder. Bell and Burks are role players, as likely to penetrate as to shoot deep. They are all supremely fit and at ease in Baucom's system. "They play fast, but they rarely take bad shots," says Scruggs. "They force you to play their speed and they wear you down."

The praise is also worth tempering. Through 20 games, VMI was giving up 85.7 points per game, 329th out of 330 Division I teams. The Keydets pressure hard, but teams that beat that pressure score easily. Yet as soon as the ball drops from the net, Baucom begins shouting, Go! Go! Go! "I remember those Loyola teams," he says. "If you celebrated, they were dunking on you." Should the Keydets reach the NCAA tournament, they seem equally likely to pull off a 20-point upset against a stunned opponent as to lose by 28, which they did to Jacksonville State (now 9-11) in late November.

It was after that loss that Baucom arranged to have self-proclaimed "head coach" Travis Fox, a hypnotherapist whom Baucom sought out last spring after seeing Fox's Beat the Bogeyman self-help infomercials on Golf Channel. The Palm Desert, Calif.-based Fox, who also performs hypnosis in stage shows and on television, had never worked with a sports team, but Baucom arranged for him to drive from Atlanta and meet with the Keydets. "We all agreed that we were going to believe in the impossible," says Fox, who has met twice with the team and conducted two other video conferences.

His suggestions have become part of the VMI routine. Last Thursday, three hours before they played Southern Virginia, the Keydets came together in their locker room. They formed a tight circle on couches and stools and locked their arms. Baucom turned off the lights, and Bell spoke softly: Every little thing is for a big purpose. Know it in your mind. And for a moment, at a school defined by its boundaries, there were none.