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Bucky McMillan emphasizes Texas A&M will play ‘fun’ style of basketball
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Bucky McMillan was born in Birmingham and played his college ball at Birmingham-Southern, so his roots are from a state that is very much dipped into the SEC fabric.
The 41-year-old also spent the past 5 seasons as the head coach at Samford, so those state of Alabama roots run deep for McMillan. But starting this season — or now, really — McMillan will enter a whole new world because he’s taking over the head coaching duties at Texas A&M.
Now, the Alabama native will be trying to keep the Aggies on the right path after Buzz Williams led them to 23 wins, a solid 11-7 record in a historically good SEC and an NCAA Tournament berth. Texas A&M ultimately fell short of the Sweet 16 this season, but Aggies basketball actually mattered and now McMillan will be tasked with trying to keep it that way.
During an appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday, McMillan told the longtime SEC analyst and ESPN commentator that he’s embracing his first coaching challenge in the big-time world of the SEC.
“Particularly in the Southeast, we know it’s football country and no one loves football more than me. For basketball, it’s not good enough to just be successful. We got to make it entertaining, where the fans say, ‘Hey, win, lose or draw, I got to see that,'” McMillan explained to Finebaum.
“Bucky Ball” will be arriving in College Station this fall, and McMillan wants Aggies fans to be ready when all the fun begins in November.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
