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CHARLESTON, S.C. – The Citadel will be seeking to bounce back from its first loss of the 2020-21 campaign as it visits VMI on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m., with Head Coach
Duggar Baucom squaring off against his previous school for the 12th time since joining the Bulldogs prior to the 2015-16 season.
Saturday's game will be broadcast
live on ESPN+ from VMI's Cameron Hall and will be carried
on the radio locally via 102.1FM and 1450AM. The Voice of the Bulldogs, Luke Mauro, will have the radio call.
In their last time out, the Bulldogs (8-1, 1-1 SoCon) staged a late comeback that fell just short against preseason league favorite Furman, dropping a 94-88 decision inside McAlister Field House on Wednesday afternoon. Trailing by as many as 17 points with just under nine minutes remaining, The Citadel cut the deficit to five points on three different occasions in the closing minutes but were unable to finish off the spirited comeback against the Paladins.
Kaiden Rice led The Citadel with 20 points on 6-of-12 shooting from beyond the arc against Furman, and reigning SoCon Player of the Week
Hayden Brown logged his sixth double-double of the season with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Brown and Rice, the team's two leading scorers, have combined to score 41.8 of the team's 92.2 points per game this season.
Returning to the starting lineup for the first time since Dec. 9,
Stephen Clark kept up his recent stretch of strong play against the Paladins, especially on the defensive end of the floor. The sophomore tallied five blocks for the second straight game and third time this season, bringing his total to a team-best 21 through nine games. Clark's 2.3 blocks per game rank second among SoCon players and 22nd among all Division I athletes.
Despite the loss on Wednesday, The Citadel's high-powered offense kept humming along against Furman with 88 points, the most that the Paladins had surrendered in a game since Jan. 12, 2019. Since then, Furman had games against Auburn, Cincinnati, Wichita State and two games against Alabama, with none of those marquee opponents able to match the Bulldogs' scoring rate. Across the country this season, just six schools have hit the 80-point mark more often than The Citadel's eight times.
VMI (6-6, 1-2 SoCon) has played just twice since the turn of the new year after both of its games last week were postponed due to COVID protocols. The Keydets battled Wofford on Wednesday evening and dropped a heartbreaker against the Terriers as Storm Murphy knocked down a three-pointer with one second remaining on the clock to pull out an 80-78 victory.
Greg Parham paces the Keydets with 17.7 points per game and has also dished out a team-best 46 assists compared to just 29 turnovers. Parham is the top three-point shooter in the conference by percentage, connecting on 51.4 percent (38-of-74) of his shots from beyond the arc, five percent better than any other qualifying SoCon player.
Kamdyn Curfman (13.3) and Jake Stephens (12.0) also average double digits for VMI, with Stephens also posting the team-high mark with 23 blocks on the season. Myles Lewis rounds out the leaders for the Keydets with 7.4 rebounds per game.
Saturday's meeting will be the 115th in the series history between the two sides, with The Citadel holding a narrow 58-56 edge over the Keydets. The Bulldogs will be seeking their first victory over VMI since an 84-82 win inside McAlister Field House on Jan. 26, 2019; since that win, VMI has won three straight in the series. Under Baucom, The Citadel owns a 4-7 record against VMI, where he previously coached from 2005-06 through 2014-15.
The Bulldogs will face a quick turnaround following Saturday's game with a visit to UNCG on deck for Monday evening at 7 p.m. The game, originally scheduled for Feb. 3 in Greensboro, was shifted as part of the SoCon's rescheduling announced on Tuesday afternoon. The Spartans were picked by the league's coaches to claim the regular season championship in the SoCon preseason poll and are 7-5 overall and 2-2 in conference play thus far.
