Bucky McMillan
A new era of Texas A&M Men's Basketball
By Charean Williams ’86
At his introductory press conference, Texas A&M Men's Basketball Head Coach Bucky McMillan promised Aggie fans that they are going to love the team's style of play.
It's an up-tempo offense and a full-court press defense, with McMillan demanding "100 percent effort 100 percent of the time."
The game approach has earned the nickname "Bucky Ball," which McMillan's former high school coach, Mark Cornelius, describes as "systematic chaos."
The term "Bucky Ball," though, wasn't initially intended as a compliment. In his 12 years as an Alabama high school basketball coach, McMillan's rival coaches used it to disparage a different type of play.
"All the old-school coaches in Alabama played really slow," McMillan said. "So, they'd use the term as a negative. 'Oh, they're just over there playing Bucky Ball. They're playing undisciplined basketball. Bucky Ball.' Then, the people in Mountain Brook, where I coached, coined the term Bucky Ball, and it became a positive. So, what started as a description for an undisciplined style became known as an exciting style."
Bucky Ball became a part of Texas A&M's lexicon on April 4, 2025, when the Aggies hired McMillan as the 23rd head coach in school history.
"In my conversations with our search firm, I suggested that we needed to look at modernizing our approach to men's basketball," Director of Athletics Trev Alberts said. "That was everything from style of play to interactions with fans and donors to player acquisition. Bucky immediately stood out based on his reputation of Bucky Ball and his unique path to Division I coaching. He was sort of a non-traditional candidate."
Indeed, McMillan took the road less traveled to get to a Power 4 head coaching job at age 41.
For starters, McMillan has never been an assistant coach at any level. He began his career at 15, while he was still playing and coaching his younger brother's Over the Mountain team. While still in college, McMillan coached an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) 17-and-under team.
“Everyone is going to love the pace and the style of play — the 3-pointers and the aggressiveness on offense — but I think what's underrated is our defense and our grit, toughness, relentlessness and fearlessness.”
Just as unusual, Samford gave McMillan his first college job in 2020 by hiring him directly from the high school ranks. John Wooden, John Thompson and Bob McKillop are among the only men's basketball coaches before McMillan to make that jump.
"It's never been about where I needed to get to," McMillan said. "I treated a high school JV job like I treat the Texas A&M job. Like, it was everything. The good part about all that is most college coaches go from playing to being a graduate assistant in college to being an assistant coach to being a head coach. I've been a head coach my whole life, and I'd be surprised if I'm not in the top five among college coaches in number of games coached. It wasn't at the same level, but basketball is basketball."
McMillan says he has seen it all.
"What I mean by that is, I've coached players who you have to teach how to catch the basketball," he added. "It's a little unique for a college coach, but it's developed my skill set. I think it's helped me coming up that way."
The fact that McMillan took over basketball programs that were afterthoughts in the football-minded state of Alabama and turned them into championship teams appealed to Alberts.
McMillan proved at his past two jobs — Mountain Brook High School and Samford — that the past doesn't matter. Mountain Brook had never played in a state championship game before McMillan's arrival, and Samford went 7-23 and ranked 325th in the NET rankings — one of the worst teams in the country — the year before McMillan's hiring.
He made his own history at both schools.
"He's going to be successful wherever he is," said Cornelius. "He always finds a way."
Until he moved to College Station, McMillan had spent his life in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a quarterback in youth football, a shortstop in Dizzy Dean baseball and a point guard on his traveling basketball team.
"But when he got to junior high, he was keenly focused on basketball and always had that burning desire to learn more conceptually," said McMillan's father, who also goes by Bucky. "He also wanted to see it on film. So, I think he always had the coach part in him from the absolute jump."
McMillan was never the most athletic. He couldn't jump the highest or run the fastest. But he always had the best basketball mind, serving as a coach on the court.
During McMillan's junior season at Mountain Brook High School, the Spartans were losing by two points in a playoff game with three seconds left. His coach, Mark Cornelius, told McMillan he was going to sub him out, so the opponent wouldn't know who to guard. With the Spartans inbounding the ball in front of their own bench, McMillan suggested he stand up right at the out-of-bounds line. Two players went to guard McMillan, who was out of the game, leaving another player wide open for a 3-pointer to win the game.
"You could just tell he was a little bit of a different animal," Cornelius said. "He was so intelligent basketball-wise that you knew he was going to be special. He thinks about the game with different kind of glasses."
McMillan walked onto Birmingham-Southern, then a Division I program, to play for Duane Reboul after attending the coach's camps for years. Reboul had learned the multiple-defense pressing system — which is the base of Bucky Ball — from Neil Reed, a former assistant coach for Adolph Rupp at Kentucky. McMillan learned the system in four seasons under Reboul and then made it his own.
"Bucky was a coach on the court," Reboul said. "He truly was an extension of our coaching staff. His success is not a surprise. At a very young age, he loved the game of basketball, and he was a very bright, young guy. He spent a lot of time in the gym."
McMillan did not finish his playing career after Birmingham-Southern decided to go Division III. Instead, he began coaching the junior varsity team at his alma mater, Mountain Brook, in 2007.
Two years later, when he was only 25, McMillan took over as the varsity coach.
Mountain Brook reached the state finals in Alabama's highest classification seven times in McMillan's 12 seasons at the helm, including seven of his final eight seasons there, and the Spartans won five state titles. He was named the National Coach of the Year in 2018 by the National High School Coaches Association when his team finished fifth in the country, and he was a national coach finalist in 2019.
McMillan won 332 high school games before Samford hired him in 2020. The Bulldogs' rise from the ashes was as impressive, with McMillan leading them to three SoCon championships in five seasons — two regular-season titles and a tournament crown. He earned SoCon Coach of the Year honors three times.
In McMillan's final four seasons at Samford, the Bulldogs went 93-38, including 52-20 in conference play. They ranked as high as fifth in scoring, with an average of 86.1 points per game in 2023-24.
Last season, Samford ranked 13th in the nation in scoring at 83.3 points per game and had the ninth-most 3-point field goals. The Bulldogs forced an average of 16.3 turnovers per game, which ranked fourth nationally.
“One thing is for sure,” Reboul said. “His players are going to play their hearts out for him.”
McMillan has built a staff with whom he has familiarity, and some of whom have familiarity with Aggieland. Mitch Cole, who worked under Billy Kennedy at A&M from 2011-16, is among the assistants who have joined McMillan from Samford.
Cole long ago shared his love for A&M with McMillan, and he jumped at the chance to return as an assistant coach with his protégé-turned-boss.
“Bucky's like my little brother, but he has the controls now,” Cole said with a chuckle.
Cole, a former assistant at Birmingham-Southern who has known McMillan since he was in the seventh grade, can't wait for Aggies to experience Bucky Ball.
“Everyone is going to love the pace and the style of play — the 3-pointers and the aggressiveness on offense — but I think what's underrated is our defense and our grit, toughness, relentlessness and fearlessness,” Cole said. “I think all those things are going to come into play, and I think Aggie fans will appreciate that. We've won here with good defensive teams that are gritty and tough and don't mind doing the dirty work. We'll do all that, but we'll do it faster.”
Cole says the goal is to be great in all four phases — half-court offense, half-court defense, full-court offense and full-court defense.
“If we can click on all those cylinders, we've just seen the blueprint for championships,” he said.
Fast. Fearless. Relentless. Bucky Ball has arrived at Texas A&M, and Aggie Basketball fans are in for a thrilling ride.