Bucky to Texas A&M: The Timeline and Looking Back on 5 Years
Well that turned unexpectedly. Samford head men’s basketball coach Bucky McMillan has officially been named the next head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies. McMillan leaves Samford after five seasons with 99 wins, two Southern Conference regular season championships and one Southern Conference tournament championship. Samford fell to Kansas in the 2024 NCAA Tournament round of 64. Samford also had four straight 20-win seasons following the COVID-19 season.
What a difference a couple weeks makes. Samford officially saw their season end in the first round of the NIT on March 19th. Two days later, Samford made sure that their then four core pieces publicly announced their commitment to return to Samford next year. Lukas Walls, Jaden Brownell, Josh Holloway and Riley Allenspach announced they were coming back (all are now in the transfer portal).
Samford had positioned themselves to be back near the top of the Southern Conference with their returning continuity. Then the next week, four transfers from last offseason announced their intentions to jump back into the portal. Trey Fort, Julian Brown, Isaiah West and Larry Olayinka all entered the portal. Olayinka was the last to enter the portal on March 27th.
Then at 6:59pm central time on April 4th, ESPN”s Pete Thamel announced the unexpected, “Texas A&M is set to hire Samford coach Bucky McMillan as the school’s next men’s head basketball coach.”
On April 1st, then Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams took the open Maryland job and A&M then became the last open Power 4-5 job. The Aggies search first turned to Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard. The fit was obvious with Beard being from Texas and having been the Texas head coach before.
Beard would eventually turn down Texas A&M to stay at Ole Miss.
Smoke started to form on the morning of Friday April 4th, that Texas A&M was potentially looking at McMillan as a candidate for their open job. Billy Liucci, the co-owner of a popular Texas A&M site, TexAgs.com, reported that McMillan was a name to watch for their opening potentially along with High Point’s Alan Huss.
As the day continued to progress, there was starting to be some fire along with that smoke. Then McMillan was reported as the Aggies next head coach.
Bucky McMillan was never actively looking to leave Samford as I understood it and was told. He was in a perfect position to sit and wait for the right opening. He was never going to leave for another mid-major job with a not so significant bump in salary. However, I never believed Bucky was going to be Samford’s Bob McKillop from Davidson or Rick Byrd from Belmont.
McKillop and Byrd spent 33 years each at those schools.
I did not even think that Bucky would take an ACC job if that were to be open. Being a man who has never left Birmingham for his entire life, all he knows is the SEC. If one of the now 16 SEC jobs were to be open and he was to be offered, he would jump. So that is how we got here.
Oddly enough McMillan more than likely was going to be the next head coach at Ole Miss if Chris Beard went to Texas A&M and Ole Miss offered him.
In this day of the transfer portal and NIL, Texas A&M and any job in the SEC is a job that you do not turn down. This day was going to eventually come for the Samford administration and Samford fans alike. I just did not think that Texas A&M would look McMillan’s way. They basically went big game hunting with Chris Beard then pivoted to Bucky.
Maybe A&M still has reservations from paying a massive buyout to a school since firing former Samford QB Jimbo Fisher almost three years ago. We will wait for McMillan’s A&M contract to see what kind of buyout was sent to Samford.
So what will we remember the most about these past five years about Samford basketball under Bucky McMillan? Well for starters, he brought this program back from the dead and led Samford to its greatest run in school history.
In Samford’s last season under then head coach Scott Padgett, Samford ranked 321st in the country in KenPom after a 10-23 season. Two seasons ago, Samford also reached their highest NET ranking and KenPom ranking in school history. Samford finished 81st in KenPom last season. Before McMillan took the job, Samford was in the bottom 30 of the country in NET ranking and KenPom.
People began to care about Samford basketball again. Whether it came to NIL donations or fan/student interest, Samford built themselves into a brand. Someone can now win games at Samford. That has not been the case for a long time. The more games that McMillan wins at Texas A&M, the more it helps the Samford brand in the years to come. He leaves Samford for an SEC job just after the SEC had an historic season getting 14 teams into the NCAA Tournament.
Everyone in the coaching industry now know who Samford is. Look out for our breakdown of who I think Samford should look to for their next head coach.
What will we remember the most from the Bucky McMillan era? Just some examples from McMillan’s opening Zoom press conference from 2020 that struck me looking back.
“Anyone that comes to a Samford game, you’re going to see a team that goes all out, all the time,” said McMillan. “That’s the number one thing, that’s a promise.” We saw that time and time again so check there.
“The biggest thing ideally is that we develop a successful culture and people know that when they come to the Pete Hanna Center, they know what they are going to get.”
This also gets a check. Samford fans knew they were going to get a team that never backed down from a fight and gave 110% all the time. They were never out of a game and that was never more evident this past season.
On a July 7, 2023 episode of the State of the Bulldogs Podcast, McMillan promised that Samford was going to get to places they had not been in a long time.
“We’re going to do it here. Like there’s not a question about it. We’re going to, it’s going to happen. We will knock down the door, we’ll get into the tournament. We’ll win in the tournament and it’s going to be great. We’re going to do it in a fun way. It’s even better doing it here because where we started and like the people that were on the ground floor, when we did it, it’s going to be so great doing it with those people.”
Well Samford did knock down the door earning an NCAA Tournament berth in 2024. Samford under McMillan never won in the tournament but became oh so close.
Here was a lifelong Birmingham kid, who took a college job in his hometown, and delivered on promises he made. He brought life and energy back into a program that sorely needed it. There is no reason to be upset that he left, blame the current state of college sports for the circumstance we find ourselves in.
Samford athletic director Martin Newton took a chance on a coach who had never coached in college basketball and it worked. Now he has a new challenge, find a coach who can keep Samford at this current pace. Newton and Samford President Beck Taylor released statements following McMillan’s departure.
"I want to thank Bucky for all he has given to Samford University and the men's basketball program," said Samford Athletic Director Martin Newton. "The past five years have been a special period in our program's history. We wish Bucky the best in his new endeavor and look forward to conducting a national search with the goal of keeping Samford among the premier Division I programs in the nation." - Martin Newton
"Samford will forever be indebted to Bucky McMillan for reestablishing the Samford men's basketball program's tradition of excellence," said Samford President Beck Taylor. "Even more than the exciting brand of basketball he brought to Homewood, or the championships won, I will personally be most grateful for the way Bucky represented Samford's values and Christian mission. Our disappointment in losing our head coach is matched only by our desire to see Bucky succeed at the highest levels." - Beck Taylor
Samford’s administration has to act fast. Time is of the essence for Samford to find a new leader for their basketball program. All four of the players that announced their intentions to stay have now entered the transfer portal. Jaden Brownell, Josh Holloway, Riley Allenspach, and Lukas Walls are now in the portal. I fully expect at least Brownell and Holloway to follow Bucky to College Station. Samford redshirt freshman Caleb Harrison has now followed those others into the transfer portal.
Now sophomore forward Zion Wilburn is currently the only returning player for Samford.
We will always remember this historic five year stretch for Samford basketball. As Dr. Taylor said, Samford will be forever indebted to Bucky and that might be an understatement.
The Winter Soldier is out and it is time to move on. It was always a movement. Shoutout Bucky Ball.
