Ten Greatest VMI Basketball Players: Number 6

I could've used a picture of Chavis
here and no one would know.

Hometown: Charlotte, NC
High School: Vance HS/Christ School
Years at VMI: 2005-09
Position: Guard
-2009 Second Team All-Big South
-All-time VMI steals leader
-8th all-time point scoring leader
-8th all-time assists leader

Following the conclusion of the 2007-08 season, the feeling amongst Keydet basketball fans for next year was not a good one. Having just lost the school's greatest point scorer in Reggie Williams, there was seemingly no way the team would do any better than the 14–15 mark they put on the court the previous year. And with a schedule that opened at Kentucky and Virginia in a two-day span, you were looking at an 0-2 start right out of the gates.

Clearly, Travis Holmes and his twin brother had other things in mind.

Looking back on it, there were few more nimble and agile than Travis Holmes. The same could be said of his twin Chavis, who was probably a better scorer, but Travis gets a slight nod on the defensive side; he is VMI's all-time steals leader with 309 of those, five more than his brother. If you want lockdown defense, put either of those two guys on the floor.

Travis was born in Charlotte, North Carolina (as were many other Big South players) and originally attended Vance High School, with Chavis of course. The twins led Vance to a 2003 North Carolina State Championship. They then transferred to the Christ School in Arden, NC (also where Jon Elmore played) for the final two years of high school. In his senior year, Travis averaged 19.7 points, six rebounds, and three steals per game, earning him the Piedmont Athletic Conference of Independent Schools MVP. And once again, their team won the state championship.

Duggar managed to recruit both brothers to VMI when they toured it in 2005. I believe one of them said it looked like a prison (how typical). Believe it or not, VMI was the only Division I school that gave scholarship offers to both brothers. The rest wanted one or the other. For Travis, his freshman year was one to forget (that whole season was a disaster - Duggar missed twelve games with heart problems and they won all of seven games, four of which came over non-DI's). But in '06-07, the run-and-gun in place, Travis broke out for 15 points/game and averaged 3.4 steals, which led the country. He once had 11 (!!) steals in a game against Bridgewater, which got him on a very fancy list.

Of course all this time he was overshadowed by Reggie and his scoring prowess, but Travis quietly averaged 15.6 points in his junior year, though his assists and steals dropped slightly. Following Reggie's graduation, Travis, Chavis, and their senior counterpart Willie Bell broke out in '08-09, leading VMI to an unprecedented and unforeseen 24–8 record and another Big South final appearance. Travis continued to grow his scoring average, with 19.1 PPG as well as 6.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 3.2 steals. All this effort culminated with a spot on the Big South...second team all-conference. Yup, a guy who led the league in steals and was among the top scorers got that. But hey, it's the Big South; did we really expect anything less?

But no matter the Big South, Travis ended his career eighth on VMI's all-time scoring list and first in steals, not to mention eight in total assists. After being overshadowed by the most prolific scorer the program has ever known, it turns out Travis' real talents had yet to be discovered.