Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 16, 1994 TAG: 9412160026
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The cadets who also are basketball Keydets seem to be playing with machine guns this season, too.
Problem is, in their next game, several Uzis might not be enough.
VMI visits top-ranked North Carolina on Saturday night. The Keydets will run and shoot and take a guarantee of more than $20,000 back to Lexington, and North Carolina will go to 6-0.
The young Keydets may not be very successful this season, but they could be very entertaining. After two victories against sub-Division I opposition, VMI has set records in losses to Richmond, Virginia Tech and Radford.
With 31, 32 and 32 tries from beyond the 3-point arc in those games, the Keydets' have rewritten the record for 3s attempted against each of those state foes.
However, the Keydets have made only 29 of those 95 bombs. And they not only shoot deep, they fire quickly. Bart Bellairs, VMI's new coach, estimates the Keydets' average possession this season has lasted 15 to 17 seconds.
As that great military man John Paul Jones once said, ``Don't fire until you see the whites of the squares on their backboards.'' their backboard blocks above the baskets.''
VMI's school record for 3s attempted is 33, against Lynchburg in 1990. It's only a matter of time before the Keydets gun that one down, too. Through five games, VMI already has shot 28 percent of the school-record 579 3-pointers it launched last season.
Why shouldn't the Keydets try to play at what some would call a ridiculous tempo? In coach Joe Cantafio's final two seasons combined before he left for Furman, VMI was 10-45, with seven victories against Division I foes.
As a sideline swami, Cantafio came up short only in height. Bellairs said he is sold on the style of play he's installed in his first job as a Division I head coach, too.
Of course, he might not be saying that or playing that were it not for a 35-second shot clock. Why try to hold the ball when time is on Goliath's side?
``I figured it's easier for us to recruit guards than at any other position here,'' said Bellairs, who drove down I-81 to the post from Lefty Driesell's staff at James Madison. ``It's a new approach. I just thought a change was needed.''
At VMI, conditioning is part of the military mindset, so Bellairs also is hoping to beat some opponents who are heaving air while the Keydets are heaving 3s.
However, the Keydets are playing at such a pace that even radio play-by-play man Wade Branner has been out of breath, and he isn't running anything except his mouth.
Bellairs, 38, has it all figured out. He said the Keydets need to shoot 36 percent from 3-point range and commit fewer than 15 turnovers per game to win. He must have been talking about a Southern Conference game, because those numbers won't beat North Carolina.
The Keydets deserve credit for trying, however. The Dean Dome visit is their first game against a No.1 team since December 1982, when VMI fell to the Virginia Sampsons.
It's their biggest game outside the state since opening the 1980-81 season at UCLA, which was coming off an NCAA runner-up finish the previous season. Another reason VMI is playing Carolina this season and next is the Tar Heels have promised to visit Cameron Hall in Lexington in 1996-97.
How did Bellairs work this two-for-one deal? Maybe he asked Dean Smith if the Tar Heels would visit ``Cameron'' and the Hall of Fame coach thought Bellairs meant Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke.
VMI also needs money to operate its athletics program. That means not only getting guarantees, but also putting more than screaming cadets in the seats at Cameron Hall.
In '96-97, visiting opponents such as UNC and North Carolina State should help do that. Playing those opponents on the road also adds a needed selling point to VMI's recruiting pitch.
VMI goes to UVa on Monday night, then begins its New Year at Alabama and Navy. So far, Bellairs said his team has been ``a lot like the rookie policemen sent out on the course, where they have to distinguish the bad guys from the good guys, then fire.''
The Keydets have taken some bad shots, but no one can deny they're taking their shots.
There is one advantage the Keydets have over the Heels. Bellairs is unbeaten as a coach at the Dean Dome. He was a Maryland assistant in 1986, the night Lefty and the late Len Bias stomped on the Heels.
Sure, it's a long shot for Bellairs, but then that's what the Keydets want, right?
by CNB