COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The 12th Man came together at Reed Arena Monday afternoon to welcome Texas A&M’s new men’s head basketball coach Bucky McMillan. McMillan talked about the three main pillars of the program, ‘hardworking, unselfish, fearless,’ and he’s excited to introduce the 12th Man to his brand of basketball, widely known as ‘Bucky Ball.’
“When we play, you'll see dogs on the floor, you know what I'm saying, like you're going to see win, lose or draw, you're going to walk away and say I'm glad I have this Texas A&M on my shirt, ‘those dudes laid it down out there,’” McMillan said. When there's a loose ball, like there's going to be five guys diving on it and you're not even going to know sometimes, particularly in the short term, depending on this roster. We may not win every game, but you're going to dang sure feel like it.”
Bucky Ball made Samford one of the most exciting teams to watch in college basketball. Last season the Bulldogs ranked 13th in the nation in scoring offense while ranking 10th in 3 pointers attempted and made. Defensively, Samford forced an average of 16 turnovers which ranked 4th in the country.
“We play a style that wins,” McMillan said. “We just play very fast. Very fast when I was at Samford, we were a top 10 scoring team in the country. That never happens for a mid-major program. Our goal is to be one of the top scoring teams in the country, and at some point we will certainly lead the country in scoring.”
Other Aggie head coaches were in attendance, as well as two of McMillan's assistants, Mitch Cole and Kyle Keller, who are heading back to College Station. Both coaches' first stint at Texas A&M came under former head coach Billy Kennedy from 2011 to 2016. Cole will focus on the offense and Keller will lead the defense.
“We got a good mix there with a great offensive mind, a great defensive mind, but they match,” McMillan said. “We want a defense that complements what we're doing on offense, which is playing fast. We want to make other teams have to play fast because they fear that we're going to take the ball from…The connections are tremendous, but the knowledge is up there as well.”
It's no secret that because of the transfer portal window opening early, McMillan and his staff will have to work quickly to assemble a roster with Chris McDermott being the lone Aggie from this year's squad to have not entered the portal.
“A lot of the high majors, we're going to have to get to work immediately,” McMillan said. “And we do play unique style like we play very up tempo, very fast pace we love to recruit to that system, but I know this, we can't run that system with four players, so we're going to have to get players on the board and we're going to get players on the board quickly here and you know we'll have to get lucky in some circumstances.”
Now as McMillan said it’s time to start building a team that will play and exciting and entertaining brand of basketball at Reed Arena. We’ll continue to keep you updated on who will be suiting up for the Maroon & White next season.
