HOMEWOOD, Ala. — The home Bucky McMillan grew up in, the one within the Birmingham suburbs the place a brand new proprietor found 18 waterlogged basketballs buried beneath years of leaves in a ditch the place they’d collected after operating off the driveway, is barely three miles from his workplace at Samford College. The Shades Valley YMCA, the place McMillan performed his first organized basketball, is lower than half a mile away. Mountain Brook Excessive Faculty, the place McMillan starred as a participant after which constructed the Spartans right into a nationwide prep energy as head coach, is six miles away. Birmingham-Southern School, the place McMillan walked on, earned a beginning job and helped this system transition from NAIA to Division I, is eight miles away.
From Samford, the place he’s gained three straight Southern Convention Coach of the 12 months awards and the final two regular-season league titles and has already change into probably the most achieved coach at school historical past after simply 4 years, McMillan will be on the scene of just about each essential second from his 40 years of life in quarter-hour or much less. His story is as uncommon as it’s outstanding: He’s achieved a lifetime’s value of success by center age, with out ever actually leaving dwelling.
“It’s so enjoyable, since you get to see the happiness of all those that have been with you alongside the way in which,” McMillan says. “Everyone will get to share in it. It turns into like a pastime for individuals round right here, like a bunch of outdated mates bought collectively and mentioned, ‘Hey, let’s do one thing actually cool. Let’s make Samford a top-25 group.’”
The strangest factor about McMillan’s story is that seemingly nobody concerned ever stopped to ask: Is that this really going to work? Not when he turned his highschool alma mater’s junior varsity coach at 22 or when he turned its varsity coach at 24 or when he landed a Division I head-coaching job at 36 with out ever having labored in faculty. Individuals simply saved placing him in cost and trusting that he would win, as a result of he all the time has.
McMillan gained a Dizzy Dean World Collection as an all-star shortstop in fourth grade, led Mountain Brook to its first state semifinal as an all-state level guard in highschool, coached a top-10 AAU group whereas he was nonetheless in faculty, coached Mountain Brook to seven state championship video games and 5 state titles in eight years, then jumped straight to D1 two years later and launched an entire new viewers to his frenetic fashion of play: Bucky Ball. He’s gained 20-plus video games the final three seasons, and this yr’s Bulldogs have one of the best report in program historical past (26-5). They’re hoping to earn their first NCAA Event bid in 24 years by profitable the SoCon match, which begins Friday.
“It’s a fantastic story and a fantastic rent,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl says. “These of us on this state knew what an excellent coach and program developer he was, so it’s completely no shock what he’s achieved, however kudos to Samford for respecting any person who was proper there in the neighborhood and having the braveness to rent a highschool coach.”
An even bigger program will inevitably attempt to lure away McMillan for more cash and the promise of a much bigger stage, ahead of later. It might be a straightforward promote to most individuals in that place, and there may finally be a suggestion McMillan simply can’t refuse. The best way he sees it, although, he can nonetheless get anyplace from proper right here.
“I knew at an early age that if you wish to excel at one thing, you’ve actually bought to be all-consumed on that mission to do it, that individuals who have their palms in 1,000,000 totally different jars aren’t nearly as good as somebody with a singular focus,” McMillan says. “You’ve bought to contemplate the place you need to dwell, the place your roots are and who you need to do that with. Should you construct your model in a single place, your community grows exponentially, and when you could have a grassroots motion that’s constructing one thing with the correct individuals in the correct place, it may change into one thing so particular it positive aspects nationwide consideration.
“You may make the factor most individuals really feel like they need to go some place else to get.”
That kind of dream, to show a non-public Baptist faculty with 6,000 college students into the Gonzaga of the South, would require appreciable sources. And right here come the sources, sauntering over to talk to McMillan after a current apply.
Gary Cooney is a multimillionaire insurance coverage dealer who performed on considered one of Samford’s all-time nice soccer groups within the Nineteen Seventies. His final identify is on buildings throughout campus, together with the soccer fieldhouse and Cooney Corridor, which homes the enterprise faculty and opened in 2015 thanks largely to a $12.5 million reward from its namesake. Cooney has identified McMillan since he was a child, coached him in youth baseball and shared a beer with him the day he buried his son, McMillan’s childhood buddy.
So when Samford was on the lookout for a brand new coach in 2020, coming off 9 dropping seasons within the earlier 11 years, despite the fact that athletic director Martin Newton had already locked in on McMillan as his best choice, Cooney left nothing to likelihood. “Should you rent him, I’ll provide you with a stable six-figure reward to get it began,” he advised the varsity’s administration. “As a result of this one is private to me.”
Cooney appears to be like and talks like Buddy Garrity, the caricature of an overzealous booster on “Friday Evening Lights,” the highschool soccer drama by which the slogan — Texas Without end — may very well be tweaked for McMillan. In Cooney’s eyes, Bucky Ball belongs in Birmingham. Now and all the time. When discuss of one other program poaching him arises, Cooney, who this season provided the varsity one other “six-figure bounty” to assist McMillan set the all-time attendance report, bristles.
“Disgrace on us,” he says, “if we don’t determine the best way to retain one of many brightest abilities within the nation, who’s considered one of us. We’ve an unimaginable alternative right here, and so does Bucky, as a result of that is the place he desires to be. That is the place he grew up. It’s the place his household and his mates are. It’s the place his highschool buddies are within the stands each recreation and their youngsters now come to his basketball camps. It’s the place he can go all the way down to Otey’s Tavern after an enormous win and have fun with individuals he’s identified his total life.
“Inform me that’s not sort of a dream come true. It’s Mayberry on steroids.”
So what precisely is Bucky Ball?
It’s a full-court-pressing, breakneck-running, 3-point-shooting blur of exercise. “Play quick, play protection and provides it one hundred pc or get the hell out,” says Bucky McMillan Sr., the coach’s father. “That’s Bucky Ball, and you may’t beat it.” (Bucky is a nickname that has caught to each generations, despite the fact that their given names are Henry Ward McMillan, the II and III. Bucky works higher for slogans, his father says.)
Samford ranks fifth nationally in each offensive tempo and 3-point share, sixth in turnovers pressured. The Bulldogs play 10 guys at the very least 13 minutes per recreation and no person greater than 25 minutes, as McMillan overwhelms opponents with recent legs churning at most effort. Everyone on the roster can shoot it, too. Eleven gamers have made greater than 10 3-pointers; seven are taking pictures higher than 40 % from deep.
“In a single phrase, I’d simply say enjoyable,” McMillan says of his system. “You need to discover probably the most enjoyable solution to win, as a result of recruits need to play this manner and followers need to watch it.”
Samford averages 86.9 factors per recreation likes to push the tempo with gamers like Rylan Jones. (John Byrum/ AP)
Alabama coach Nate Oats, who swears by an analogous 3s-and-layups offensive fashion that has introduced him two SEC championships, sees a variety of himself in McMillan. Oats was a highschool coach who turned a Division I head coach after simply two years as a university assistant. What impresses him most is that, whereas anybody might resolve to play with tempo, area and hearth away, “you may inform Bucky is a extremely sharp man who understands the why and, extra importantly, the best way to get one of the best photographs inside that strategy.”
It’s hardly stunning to study that McMillan grew up idolizing Rick Pitino. He figures he’s watched each recreation Pitino coached at Louisville, plus all of the footage he might discover of Pitino’s time at Kentucky. Yearly, he reveals his group the Mardi Gras Miracle, when Pitino’s Wildcats erased a 31-point deficit with 15:34 to play at LSU. That group tried 37 3-pointers and made 15 … in 1994, which was a extremely uncommon strategy to basketball in these days.
“He was simply so progressive,” McMillan says, “and the factor that I’ve all the time liked about Pitino is he was his personal man. He wasn’t afraid to attempt issues simply because they have been unconventional. He was one of many first coaches to let his groups shoot a bunch of 3s and press the entire recreation.”
McMillan is equally unafraid to educate his manner. He figures a few of that conviction is solely a product of his atypical path. Nearly each head coach spends at the very least slightly time slicing his tooth as an assistant, someplace alongside the way in which. Having by no means labored for anybody else, although, the buck has all the time stopped with Bucky. He began his profession with low sufficient stakes, teaching youth basketball whereas he was nonetheless in highschool, that he might experiment with fashion till he was sure of what labored and what didn’t.
“Most individuals get their first head-coaching job and all of the sudden they’re in entrance of 10,000 individuals having by no means known as a timeout,” McMillan says. “What, are they going to attempt trapping missed photographs? They’re afraid they’ll seem like an fool if it doesn’t work. However I used to be lucky to have sufficient time to attempt issues out in order that I can imagine utterly in what we’re doing now.”
That’s the most Pitino-like trait Newton noticed in McMillan when he interviewed him for this job. His father, C.M. Newton, coincidentally, employed Pitino at Kentucky.
“I bear in mind my dad speaking about that ‘it issue’ with Rick,” Newton says. “Bucky is similar manner. It was fascinating to listen to him speak about the way in which his thoughts works, the mix of analytics and instincts, and the way he knew precisely how he wished to play and recruit and construct a program. He’s by no means wavered. It’s one of many issues that attracted me to him, and it attracts recruits to him, how that confidence simply oozes from him.”
Simply because he’s confident doesn’t imply McMillan is with out mentors. His employees contains Duane Reboul, his faculty head coach, a 400-game winner with two NAIA nationwide titles, who got here out of retirement to hitch Samford as a particular assistant. Mitch Cole, who as soon as taught Bucky at Birmingham-Southern youth camps and later coached him there as a member of Reboul’s employees, is McMillan’s affiliate head coach.
When he determined to be a full-time urgent group, Reboul was simply the man to assist.
“Again after we have been taking part in that manner, I’d produce other faculty coaches come to me and say, ‘I need to press this yr. How will we do it?’” Reboul says. “I’d all the time say to them, ‘You gotta have it in your blood. You possibly can’t dabble. Since you’re going to surrender baskets, and also you’ve bought to have the abdomen to keep it up.’ There simply aren’t many coaches who can play that manner, as a result of most of them need full management of each possession. Bucky is keen to let his gamers make choices primarily based on what he’s taught them and belief that the teaching is completed not on recreation day, however in practices.”
Requested to summarize his protege turned boss, Reboul recites a well-known Muhammad Ali quote: He who will not be brave sufficient to take dangers will accomplish nothing in life.
What number of different coaches would’ve signed 5-foot-8, 140-pound Dallas Graziani from Division II nationwide champion Nova Southeastern merely as a result of they play an analogous fashion as Samford? The quantity is even fewer — possibly zero? — who would’ve despatched Graziani out for the opening tip in opposition to 7-foot-4 Purdue star Zach Edey (with a plan to not leap, quite instantly lure and attempt to steal the ball, which nearly labored). McMillan introduced the plan upfront and the varsity made a sequence of humorous social media movies about it earlier than the sport.
Probably the most-anticipated leap ball at school historical past‼️
📺 Massive Ten Community
📱/💻 https://t.co/M84e2qjwby
📊 https://t.co/DoQkDkzuZP#BuckyBall | #AllForSAMford pic.twitter.com/e3UmCHvcUd— Samford Males’s Basketball (@SamfordMBB) November 6, 2023
What number of different coaches have everybody on the group shoot 3s, even those who present up with no historical past of having the ability to take action?
“If you can also make a free throw, you can also make a 3, and if you happen to can’t make a free throw, you may’t play anyway,” McMillan says, earlier than launching right into a monologue about how each time the school 3-point line strikes again, percentages dip for a season after which go proper again as much as the place they have been. “It’s simply repetition. And if you happen to’re actually dedicated to taking part in this manner, if you happen to perceive that 3s and layups and free throws are most optimum, now you’re simply educating your gamers to hit a driver, pitching wedge and putter. Isn’t that simpler than studying a 9-iron, 8-iron, 7-iron, 6-iron, 5-iron, 4-iron, all the way in which down?”
He says all these items with a tone that provides an unstated phrase: clearly. Complete perception, not that his manner is the one manner, simply that his manner works. Clearly. Samford gained 17 straight video games and 23 of 24 at one level this season. Wherever McMillan goes, unprecedented profitable follows. Getting the correct gamers has quite a bit to do with that, and naturally he has a tried and true technique for selecting them.
McMillan describes how a recruit can show himself worthy of Bucky Ball: “Ball is shot, he crashes the glass, he can’t get it however tries to dive on it, will get up, picks up his man full-court, goes to the opposite finish and hawks the ball the entire time, ball comes off the rim, he blocks out, jumps over three individuals, will get knocked down once more, will get off the ground in half a second, bats it to the opposite finish of the ground, sprints down, tries to leap on it, will get the basketball, shot fakes, might lay it up however drops it to a teammate for a layup after which begins denying the man on the press as laborious as he can. That’s going to catch my consideration.”
Oh, is that each one?
“What’s that proper there I simply described?” McMillan says. “An elite competitor, any person who freakin’ hates to ever not do their finest and never affect profitable. That’s what I’ll all the time search for.”
Jeff Lloyd first performed on a basketball group with McMillan in second grade. He gained that Dizzy Dean World Collection with him 30 years in the past this summer time. They have been on groups collectively by highschool, and now Lloyd brings his personal youngsters to Bucky’s camps and to Samford video games. There’s a bit of seats in a nook of the Pete Hanna Heart, the place the Bulldogs come out of the tunnel, that’s typically full of kids Lloyd brings to the video games — both the rec group he coaches or one other group of native hoopers.
Lloyd is aware of different packages are coming for his outdated buddy, however he’s not satisfied McMillan will depart any time quickly. “Should you have a look at Bucky’s life, he’s a Birmingham boy to his core. Ought to out-of-state groups have a look at him? 100%. I simply know the place his roots are, and this group is rallying round Bucky, because it all the time has, and the momentum is there to develop and construct this program and make it a perennial top-25 group that’s competing for match slots yearly. Selfishly, that’s what I need to see occur.”
He isn’t alone.
Cooney refuses to imagine Samford can’t be the one to make him a suggestion he can’t refuse.
“If a suggestion comes up that’s higher than what we will do, then I’ll be his greatest supporter wherever he goes,” Cooney says, “however I simply don’t suppose this group goes to let him depart. I feel this group will understand that this occurs as soon as in a lifetime and say, ‘Hey, we can provide this coach and his program what it wants.’ ”
Final season, Florida Atlantic made a shocking run to the Last 4. Then the Owls’ coveted younger coach, Dusty Might, and all the roster made an much more gorgeous determination to remain put — even when it was just for yet one more yr.
Mark Few might’ve left Gonzaga, a Jesuit faculty with about 5,000 undergrads in Spokane, Wash., for a brand-name program years in the past. As a substitute, he’s spent 35 years as a grad assistant, assistant and head coach turning these Bulldogs right into a nationally revered model themselves. Generally you may get the place you’re going from proper the place you might be, and few perceive that higher than McMillan.
“If we’re keen to put money into this system at a excessive stage, there’s no cause we will’t do what these different colleges have achieved,” he says. “There’s no cause we will’t construct it right here. And all issues being equal, I’d like to do it in my hometown. So would all of the folks that began this with me. How nice would that be in the future, after we make that run, to say, ‘Hey, we talked about it, and we did it.’”
(High picture of Bucky McMillan: Courtesy of Samford Athletics)
