The Basketball Podcast: EP75 Duggar Baucom on Playing Fast

In this week’s coaching conversation, Citadel head men’s basketball coach Duggar Baucom joins The Basketball Podcast to discuss playing fast, shooting a high volume of 3-point shots, and competing with less talent.

Baucom was hired as the Citadel’s head coach following the 2014–15 season. He was previously the head coach at Virginia Military Institute. He’s also served a coach at Tusculum, Davidson, Western Carolina and Northwestern State.

Of the 13 head coaches in Citadel basketball history who have coached four or more years, Baucom is only the fourth to record double-digit wins in each of his first four seasons. Baucom’s 45 wins in his first four years rank tied for fifth among the 13 Citadel head coaches who coached 4-plus years. Of the 30 head coaches in program history, Baucom’s 45 wins rank tied for ninth in program history.

In 4 years at The Citadel

Most 3’s made in Division 1 last 4 years: 1516 make
Highest scoring team over that 4-year span: Citadel 85.9 – Marshall 83.9 – UNC 83.7 – Gonzaga 83.2 – Duke 82.3
Citadel have led Division 1 in scoring once, finished second once, and were 4th last year.

Prior to his time at the Citadel, Baucom amassed a 151-159 record with the Keydets of VMI. The Charlotte, North Carolina, native left VMI as the school’s all-time leader in wins. His 10 years represents the third-longest coaching tenure in Keydet history. Baucom, who led the Keydets to three Big South Tournament championship games, is one of two VMI head basketball coaches to post two 20-win seasons.

In 10 years at the Virginia Military Institute

144-139 over that period
Led Division 1 in scoring 6 of those 9 years
Played in 3 Big South Championship Games in those 9 years
Overall .487 winning percentage highest in VMI history
151 wins most in VMI history
1st year playing fast averaged 100.9, last team to average 100 points in 25 years
Made 442 3pt shots that year NCAA Record for a season, Auburn broke it this year with 454 but played 7 more games
13.4 3s per game still NCAA record

Click below to listen on:

Duggar Baucom Quotes:

“We just try to give the kids some freedom, try to teach them how to play . . and then play at the pace we want to.”

“I wanted to be difficult to prepare for . . instead of every possession mattering so much, I went the opposite philosophy – let’s make each possession matter less.”

“To make us competitive . . with less talent, let’s do something that the other team is not going to be prepared for. The other 28 games they play during the year, they’re not going to face anything like what we do.”

“The 3-pointer’s a weapon. We try to get to the free throw line by driving the ball to the rim. So we’d shoot threes, lay-ups or free throws.”

“We try to space. We try to create gaps by cutting and then drive off those cuts. We also do some isolations. We try to put our players in the best position . . we try to exploit mismatches.”

“We always tell kids . . we can try to make you the best player possible from 3:00-6:00 pm, but what you do from 6:00-3:00 pm is even more important . . so when they do have a little . . time, we want them in the gym getting up shots.”

“We use the terminology ‘the dome.’ A lot of guys use paint touches, we use the dome . . We try to pierce the dome . . once you pierce the dome you can get teams in rotation . . we were shooting 52% on dome touch shots . . on non-dome touch shots, we were shooting 19%.”

“We’re always in some type of pressure . . a lot of them look the same but we’re trapping in different places.”

“We’re not going to allow you to do the things you’re practicing . . we’re going to take you out of that . . we’re not going to let you run sets that you’ve worked on . . we’re going to put pressure on you to make your players make plays.”

“I broke into coaching at 35 years old and eight years later I was a head coach.”

“We want to shoot it before we turn it over . . we’ll shoot the first shot that’s available and then try and go get it.”

“Our whole goal to get more shots is to turn you over and also to offensive rebound and play at a pace that allows more shots.”

“Shot preparation is key. A good pass leads to a good shot . . it’s something that we drill every day.”

“Transition in everything you do . . there’s never a point where we condition after practice, our conditioning takes place within that 90 minutes.”

“Everything we do . . there’s always a winner and a loser.”

“You have to be committed [to play this way]. I’ve been 100% committed to this ever since we doubled our win total my first year . . We’re bought in . . everybody on my staff . . and we recruit to this system.”

Duggar Baucom Selected Links from the Podcast:

The Citadel

VMI – Virginia Military Institute

John Boyd

Duggar Baucom Breakdown:

1:00 – Two Most Challenging Jobs for Him
2:30 – His Great Offense
4:30 – Origin of his Coaching
8:00 – Dealing with his Less Talented Team
10:00 – Buying Out Freedom to his Players
13:00 – Emphasizing his Offense
15:00 – Structured Offense
16:00 – Calls for Certain Situation
17:30 – Place on Free Throws
20:30 – Mentality to work anywhere
23:00 – Methodology in Practice that leads to Freedom
25:30 – Charting and Develop the mentality to shoot
28:00 – Conscious Process within his Actions
30:00 – Decision Making
33:00 – Goal of the Full Court Pressure
35:00 – Changing defensive possession within possessions
37:30 – Division 1 Coach and a State Police Officer
40:00 – Shot Inflation
42:00 – His Shot Chart Just Like a Doughnut
44:00 – Emphasis on Three Point Shot
46:00 – Conditioning and the Duration of Practice
48:00 – Challenge for the Mentality as a Head Coach
50:00 – Someone explain his philosophy better than he did
52:30 – Takeaways from the Basketball Immersion Community

Dugger Baucom:

Bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duggar_Baucom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachduggar

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