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 working off the driveway, is simply 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 College, 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 Yr awards and the final two regular-season league titles and has already change into essentially the most completed coach at school historical past after simply 4 years, McMillan might be on the scene of virtually each necessary 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 best way,” McMillan says. “Everyone will get to share in it. It turns into like a interest for folks round right here, like a bunch of outdated associates obtained collectively and stated, ‘Hey, let’s do one thing actually cool. Let’s make Samford a top-25 workforce.’”
The strangest factor about McMillan’s story is that seemingly nobody concerned ever stopped to ask: Is that this truly going to work? Not when he grew to become his highschool alma mater’s junior varsity coach at 22 or when he grew to become its varsity coach at 24 or when he landed a Division I head-coaching job at 36 with out ever having labored in school. Folks simply saved placing him in cost and trusting that he would win, as a result of he at all times 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 workforce whereas he was nonetheless in school, 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 12 months’s Bulldogs have the perfect document in program historical past (26-5). They’re hoping to earn their first NCAA Match bid in 24 years by profitable the SoCon event, which begins Friday.
“It’s a terrific story and a terrific 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 executed, however kudos to Samford for respecting someone who was proper there locally and having the braveness to rent a highschool coach.”
A much bigger program will inevitably attempt to lure away McMillan for extra money and the promise of an even bigger stage, ahead of later. It will be a simple promote to most individuals in that place, and there may finally be a proposal McMillan simply can’t refuse. The way in which he sees it, although, he can nonetheless get wherever from proper right here.
“I knew at an early age that if you wish to excel at one thing, you’ve actually obtained to be all-consumed on that mission to do it, that individuals who have their palms in one million completely different jars aren’t pretty much as good as somebody with a singular focus,” McMillan says. “You’ve obtained to contemplate the place you need to reside, the place your roots are and who you need to do that with. In case you construct your model in a single place, your community grows exponentially, and when you have got a grassroots motion that’s constructing one thing with the proper folks in the proper place, it will possibly change into one thing so particular it features nationwide consideration.
“You may make the factor most individuals really feel like they need to go elsewhere to get.”
That kind of dream, to show a non-public Baptist college 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 observe.
Gary Cooney is a multimillionaire insurance coverage dealer who performed on one among Samford’s all-time nice soccer groups within the Nineteen Seventies. His final title is on buildings throughout campus, together with the soccer fieldhouse and Cooney Corridor, which homes the enterprise college and opened in 2015 thanks largely to a $12.5 million present from its namesake. Cooney has recognized 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 good friend.
So when Samford was in search of a brand new coach in 2020, coming off 9 shedding seasons within the earlier 11 years, regardless that athletic director Martin Newton had already locked in on McMillan as his best choice, Cooney left nothing to probability. “In case you rent him, I’ll offer you a stable six-figure present to get it began,” he instructed the varsity’s administration. “As a result of this one is private to me.”
Cooney appears and talks like Buddy Garrity, the caricature of an overzealous booster on “Friday Evening Lights,” the highschool soccer drama during which the slogan — Texas Endlessly — may very well be tweaked for McMillan. In Cooney’s eyes, Bucky Ball belongs in Birmingham. Now and at all times. When speak of one other program poaching him arises, Cooney, who this season supplied the varsity one other “six-figure bounty” to assist McMillan set the all-time attendance document, bristles.
“Disgrace on us,” he says, “if we don’t work out easy methods to retain one of many brightest skills within the nation, who’s one among us. We have now an unbelievable alternative right here, and so does Bucky, as a result of that is the place he needs to be. That is the place he grew up. It’s the place his household and his associates are. It’s the place his highschool buddies are within the stands each sport and their kids now come to his basketball camps. It’s the place he can go all the way down to Otey’s Tavern after a giant win and have fun with folks he’s recognized his complete life.
“Inform me that’s not form 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, regardless 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 a minimum of 13 minutes per sport 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 capturing higher than 40 p.c from deep.
“In a single phrase, I might simply say enjoyable,” McMillan says of his system. “You need to discover essentially the most enjoyable approach to win, as a result of recruits need to play this manner and followers need to watch it.”
Samford averages 86.9 factors per sport likes to push the tempo with gamers like Rylan Jones. (John Byrum/ AP)
Alabama coach Nate Oats, who swears by the same 3s-and-layups offensive fashion that has introduced him two SEC championships, sees quite a lot of himself in McMillan. Oats was a highschool coach who grew to become 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 possibly can inform Bucky is a very sharp man who understands the why and, extra importantly, easy methods to get the perfect photographs inside that method.”
It’s hardly shocking to be taught that McMillan grew up idolizing Rick Pitino. He figures he’s watched each sport Pitino coached at Louisville, plus all of the footage he might discover of Pitino’s time at Kentucky. Yearly, he exhibits his workforce the Mardi Gras Miracle, when Pitino’s Wildcats erased a 31-point deficit with 15:34 to play at LSU. That workforce tried 37 3-pointers and made 15 … in 1994, which was a extremely uncommon method to basketball in these days.
“He was simply so revolutionary,” McMillan says, “and the factor that I’ve at all times 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 sport.”
McMillan is equally unafraid to teach his method. He figures a few of that conviction is solely a product of his atypical path. Nearly each head coach spends a minimum of just a little time reducing his enamel as an assistant, someplace alongside the best way. Having by no means labored for anybody else, although, the buck has at all times 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 out of the blue they’re in entrance of 10,000 folks 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 fully 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 identical method. It was fascinating to listen to him speak about the best way his thoughts works, the mix of analytics and instincts, and the way he knew precisely how he needed 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 workers consists of Duane Reboul, his school 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 workers, is McMillan’s affiliate head coach.
When he determined to be a full-time urgent workforce, Reboul was simply the man to assist.
“Again once we have been enjoying that method, I’d produce other school coaches come to me and say, ‘I need to press this 12 months. How can we do it?’” Reboul says. “I might at all times say to them, ‘You gotta have it in your blood. You’ll be able to’t dabble. Since you’re going to surrender baskets, and also you’ve obtained to have the abdomen to keep it up.’ There simply aren’t many coaches who can play that method, 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 sport day, however in practices.”
Requested to summarize his protege turned boss, Reboul recites a well-known Muhammad Ali quote: He who just isn’t 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 the same fashion as Samford? The quantity is even fewer — possibly zero? — who would’ve despatched Graziani out for the opening tip towards 7-foot-4 Purdue star Zach Edey (with a plan to not bounce, quite instantly entice 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.
Essentially the most-anticipated bounce ball at school historical past‼️
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📊 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 workforce shoot 3s, even those who present up with no historical past of having the ability to take action?
“If you may make a free throw, you may make a 3, and in case you can’t make a free throw, you possibly can’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 in case you’re actually dedicated to enjoying this manner, in case you 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 best way down?”
He says all this stuff with a tone that provides an unstated phrase: clearly. Complete perception, not that his method is the one method, simply that his method 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 proper gamers has lots to do with that, and naturally he has a tried and true technique for choosing 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 folks, 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 onerous 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, someone who freakin’ hates to ever not do their greatest and never impression profitable. That’s what I’ll at all times search for.”
Jeff Lloyd first performed on a basketball workforce with McMillan in second grade. He gained that Dizzy Dean World Collection with him 30 years in the past this summer season. They have been on groups collectively by way of highschool, and now Lloyd brings his personal kids to Bucky’s camps and to Samford video games. There’s a piece of seats in a nook of the Pete Hanna Heart, the place the Bulldogs come out of the tunnel, that’s usually full of youngsters Lloyd brings to the video games — both the rec workforce he coaches or one other group of native hoopers.
Lloyd is aware of different packages are coming for his outdated good friend, however he’s not satisfied McMillan will go away any time quickly. “In case you take a look at Bucky’s life, he’s a Birmingham boy to his core. Ought to out-of-state groups take a look at him? 100%. I simply know the place his roots are, and this neighborhood is rallying round Bucky, because it at all times has, and the momentum is there to develop and construct this program and make it a perennial top-25 workforce that’s competing for event 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 proposal he can’t refuse.
“If a proposal 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 assume this neighborhood goes to let him go away. I feel this neighborhood will understand that this occurs as soon as in a lifetime and say, ‘Hey, we may give this coach and his program what it wants.’ ”
Final season, Florida Atlantic made a shocking run to the Ultimate 4. Then the Owls’ coveted younger coach, Dusty Might, and the complete roster made an much more beautiful determination to remain put — even when it was just for yet one more 12 months.
Mark Few might’ve left Gonzaga, a Jesuit college 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. Typically 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 purpose we will’t do what these different colleges have executed,” he says. “There’s no purpose 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 those who began this with me. How nice would that be someday, once we make that run, to say, ‘Hey, we talked about it, and we did it.’”
(High photograph of Bucky McMillan: Courtesy of Samford Athletics)