The Hometown Hero Behind a College Basketball Powerhouse

HOMEWOOD, Ala. — The area Bucky McMillan grew up in, the only within the Birmingham suburbs the place a brand new proprietor found out 18 waterlogged basketballs buried underneath years of leaves in a ditch the place they’d accrued after working off the driveway, is most effective 3 miles from his administrative center at Samford University. The Shades Valley YMCA, the place McMillan performed his first arranged basketball, is lower than half of one mile away. Mountain Brook High School, the place McMillan starred as a participant after which constructed the Spartans into a countrywide prep energy as head trainer, is six miles away. Birmingham-Southern College, the place McMillan walked on, earned a beginning task and helped this system transition from NAIA to Division I, is 8 miles away.

From Samford, the place he’s gained 3 immediately Southern Conference Coach of the Year awards and the final two regular-season league titles and has already transform essentially the most achieved trainer in class historical past after simply 4 years, McMillan will also be on the scene of just about each and every necessary second from his 40 years of lifestyles in quarter-hour or much less. His tale is as uncommon as it’s outstanding: He’s completed a life-time’s value of luck through center age, with out ever in reality leaving house.

“It’s so fun, because you get to see the happiness of all those who were with you along the way,” McMillan says. “Everybody gets to share in it. It becomes like a hobby for people around here, like a bunch of old friends got together and said, ‘Hey, let’s do something really cool. Let’s make Samford a top-25 team.’”

The strangest factor about McMillan’s tale is that apparently no person concerned ever stopped to invite: Is this in truth going to paintings? Not when he was his highschool alma mater’s junior varsity trainer at 22 or when he was its varsity trainer at 24 or when he landed a Division I head-coaching task at 36 with out ever having labored in school. People simply stored hanging him in price and trusting that he would win, as a result of he at all times has.

McMillan gained a Dizzy Dean World Series 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 whilst he was once nonetheless in school, coached Mountain Brook to seven state championship video games and 5 state titles in 8 years, then jumped immediately to D1 two years later and presented a complete new target market to his frenetic taste of play: Bucky Ball. He’s gained 20-plus video games the final 3 seasons, and this yr’s Bulldogs have the most efficient document in program historical past (26-5). They’re hoping to earn their first NCAA Tournament bid in 24 years through profitable the SoCon match, which starts Friday.

“It’s a great story and a great hire,” Auburn trainer Bruce Pearl says. “Those of us in this state knew what a brilliant coach and program developer he was, so it’s absolutely no shock what he’s done, but kudos to Samford for respecting somebody who was right there in the community and having the courage to hire a high school coach.”

A larger program will inevitably attempt to entice away McMillan for extra money and the promise of a larger level, quicker than later. It could be a very easy promote to the general public in that place, and there may in the end be an be offering McMillan simply can’t refuse. The means he sees it, despite the fact that, he can nonetheless get any place from proper right here.

“I knew at an early age that if you want to excel at something, you’ve really got to be all-consumed on that mission to do it, that people who have their hands in a million different jars aren’t as good as someone with a singular focus,” McMillan says. “You’ve got to consider where you want to live, where your roots are and who you want to do this with. If you build your brand in one place, your network grows exponentially, and when you have a grassroots movement that is building something with the right people in the right place, it can become something so special it gains national attention.

“You can make the thing most people feel like they have to go somewhere else to get.”

That type of dream, to show a personal Baptist faculty with 6,000 scholars into the Gonzaga of the South, will require substantial sources. And right here come the sources, sauntering over to talk to McMillan after a contemporary follow.

Gary Cooney is a multimillionaire insurance coverage dealer who performed on one in all Samford’s all-time nice soccer groups within the Nineteen Seventies. His final call is on structures in all places campus, together with the soccer fieldhouse and Cooney Hall, which properties the trade faculty and opened in 2015 thank you in large part to a $12.5 million present from its namesake. Cooney has recognized McMillan since he was once a toddler, coached him in early life baseball and shared a lager with him the day he buried his son, McMillan’s adolescence good friend.

So when Samford was once searching for a brand new trainer in 2020, coming off 9 shedding seasons within the earlier 11 years, even supposing athletic director Martin Newton had already locked in on McMillan as his best choice, Cooney left not anything to likelihood. “If you hire him, I’ll give you a solid six-figure gift to get it started,” he informed the college’s management. “Because this one is personal to me.”

Cooney seems to be and talks like Buddy Garrity, the cool animated film of an overzealous booster on “Friday Night Lights,” the highschool soccer drama by which the slogan — Texas Forever — might be tweaked for McMillan. In Cooney’s eyes, Bucky Ball belongs in Birmingham. Now and at all times. When communicate of every other program poaching him arises, Cooney, who this season introduced the college every other “six-figure bounty” to lend a hand McMillan set the all time attendance document, bristles.

“Shame on us,” he says, “if we don’t figure out how to retain one of the brightest talents in the country, who is one of us. We have an incredible opportunity here, and so does Bucky, because this is where he wants to be. This is where he grew up. It’s where his family and his friends are. It’s where his high school buddies are in the stands every game and their children now come to his basketball camps. It’s where he can go down to Otey’s Tavern after a big win and celebrate with people he’s known his entire life.

“Tell me that’s not kind 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 process. “Play fast, play defense and give it 100 percent or get the hell out,” says Bucky McMillan Sr., the trainer’s father. “That’s Bucky Ball, and you can’t beat it.” (Bucky is a nickname that has caught to each generations, even supposing their given names are Henry Ward McMillan, the II and III. Bucky works higher for slogans, his father says.)

Samford ranks 5th nationally in each offensive tempo and 3-point share, 6th in turnovers pressured. The Bulldogs play 10 guys a minimum of 13 mins in keeping with recreation and no one greater than 25 mins, as McMillan overwhelms warring parties with contemporary legs churning at most effort. Everybody at 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 one word, I would just say fun,” McMillan says of his gadget. “You want to find the most fun way to win, because recruits want to play this way and fans want to watch it.”

Alabama trainer Nate Oats, who swears through a an identical 3s-and-layups offensive taste that has introduced him two SEC championships, sees numerous himself in McMillan. Oats was once a highschool trainer who was a Division I head trainer after simply two years as a school assistant. What impresses him maximum is that, whilst any individual may make a decision to play with tempo, area and fireplace away, “you can tell Bucky is a really sharp guy who understands the why and, more importantly, how to get the best shots within that approach.”

It’s hardly ever unexpected to be told that McMillan grew up idolizing Rick Pitino. He figures he’s watched each and every recreation Pitino coached at Louisville, plus all of the photos he may to find of Pitino’s time at Kentucky. Every yr, he presentations 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 once a extremely ordinary option to basketball in the ones days.

“He was just so innovative,” McMillan says, “and the thing that I’ve always loved about Pitino is he was his own guy. He wasn’t afraid to try things just because they were unconventional. He was one of the first coaches to let his teams shoot a bunch of 3s and press the whole game.”

McMillan is similarly unafraid to train his means. He figures a few of that conviction is just a fabricated from his strange trail. Almost each and every head trainer spends a minimum of a bit of time reducing his enamel as an assistant, someplace alongside the best way. Having by no means labored for any individual else, despite the fact that, the dollar has at all times stopped with Bucky. He began his profession with low sufficient stakes, teaching early life basketball whilst he was once nonetheless in highschool, that he may experiment with taste till he was once positive of what labored and what didn’t.

“Most people get their first head-coaching job and suddenly they’re in front of 10,000 people having never called a timeout,” McMillan says. “What, are they going to try trapping missed shots? They’re afraid they’ll look like an idiot if it doesn’t work. But I was fortunate to have enough time to try things out so that I can believe completely in what we’re doing now.”

That is essentially the most Pitino-like trait Newton noticed in McMillan when he interviewed him for this task. His father, C.M. Newton, coincidentally, employed Pitino at Kentucky.

“I remember my dad talking about that ‘it factor’ with Rick,” Newton says. “Bucky is the same way. It was fascinating to hear him talk about the way his mind works, the combination of analytics and instincts, and how he knew exactly how he wanted to play and recruit and build a program. He’s never wavered. It’s one of the things that attracted me to him, and it attracts recruits to him, how that confidence just oozes from him.”

Just as a result of he’s confident doesn’t imply McMillan is with out mentors. His workforce contains Duane Reboul, his school head trainer, a 400-game winner with two NAIA nationwide titles, who got here out of retirement to sign up for Samford as a different assistant. Mitch Cole, who as soon as taught Bucky at Birmingham-Southern early life camps and later coached him there as a member of Reboul’s workforce, is McMillan’s affiliate head trainer.

When he determined to be a full-time urgent group, Reboul was once simply the fellow to lend a hand.

“Back when we were playing that way, I’d have other college coaches come to me and say, ‘I want to press this year. How do we do it?’” Reboul says. “I would always say to them, ‘You gotta have it in your blood. You can’t dabble. Because you’re going to give up baskets, and you’ve got to have the stomach to stick with it.’ There just aren’t many coaches who can play that way, because most of them want complete control of every possession. Bucky is willing to let his players make decisions based on what he’s taught them and trust that the coaching is done not on game day, but in practices.”

Asked to summarize his protege grew to become boss, Reboul recites a well-known Muhammad Ali quote: He who isn’t brave sufficient to take dangers will accomplish not anything in lifestyles.

How many different coaches would’ve signed 5-foot-8, 140-pound Dallas Graziani from Division II nationwide champion Nova Southeastern simply as a result of they play a an identical taste as Samford? The quantity is even fewer — perhaps 0? — who would’ve despatched Graziani out for the outlet tip towards 7-foot-4 Purdue famous person Zach Edey (with a plan not to soar, reasonably straight away entice and check out to thieve the ball, which nearly labored). McMillan introduced the plan upfront and the college made a sequence of humorous social media movies about it earlier than the sport.

The most-anticipated soar ball in class historical past‼️

📺 Big Ten Network
📱/💻 https://t.co/M84e2qjwby
📊 https://t.co/DoQkDkzuZP#BuckyBall | #AllForSAMford pic.twitter.com/e3UmCHvcUd

— Samford Men’s Basketball (@SamfordMBB) November 6, 2023

How many different coaches have everybody at the group shoot 3s, even those who display up with out a historical past of having the ability to take action?

“If you can make a free throw, you can make a 3, and if you can’t make a free throw, you can’t play anyway,” McMillan says, earlier than launching right into a monologue about how each and every time the varsity 3-point line strikes again, percentages dip for a season after which cross proper again as much as the place they have been. “It’s just repetition. And if you’re really committed to playing this way, if you understand that 3s and layups and free throws are most optimal, now you’re just teaching your players to hit a driver, pitching wedge and putter. Isn’t that easier than learning a 9-iron, 8-iron, 7-iron, 6-iron, 5-iron, 4-iron, all the way down?”

He says these types of issues with a tone that provides an unstated phrase: clearly. Total trust, now not that his means is the one means, simply that his means works. Obviously. Samford gained 17 immediately video games and 23 of 24 at one level this season. Wherever McMillan is going, unparalleled profitable follows. Getting the precise gamers has so much to do with that, and naturally he has a attempted and true means for selecting them.

McMillan describes how a recruit can end up himself worthy of Bucky Ball: “Ball is shot, he crashes the glass, he can’t get it but tries to dive on it, gets up, picks up his man full-court, goes to the other end and hawks the ball the whole time, ball comes off the rim, he blocks out, jumps over three people, gets knocked down again, gets off the floor in half a second, bats it to the other end of the floor, sprints down, tries to jump on it, gets the basketball, shot fakes, could lay it up but drops it to a teammate for a layup and then starts denying the guy on the press as hard as he can. That’s going to catch my attention.”

Oh, is that every one?

“What is that right there I just described?” McMillan says. “An elite competitor, somebody who freakin’ hates to ever not do their best and not impact winning. That’s what I’ll always look for.”

Jeff Lloyd first performed on a basketball group with McMillan in 2d grade. He gained that Dizzy Dean World Series with him 30 years in the past this summer time. They have been on groups in combination via highschool, and now Lloyd brings his personal youngsters to Bucky’s camps and to Samford video games. There’s a piece of seats in a nook of the Pete Hanna Center, the place the Bulldogs pop out of the tunnel, this is ceaselessly stuffed with youngsters Lloyd brings to the video games — both the rec group he coaches or every other crew of native hoopers.

Lloyd is aware of different systems are coming for his outdated good friend, however he’s now not satisfied McMillan will depart any time quickly. “If you look at Bucky’s life, he’s a Birmingham boy to his core. Should out-of-state teams look at him? One hundred percent. I just know where his roots are, and this community is rallying around Bucky, as it always has, and the momentum is there to grow and build this program and make it a perennial top-25 team that’s competing for tournament slots every year. Selfishly, that’s what I want to see happen.”

He isn’t by myself.

Cooney refuses to consider Samford can’t be the only to make him an be offering he can’t refuse.

“If an offer comes up that’s better than what we can do, then I’ll be his biggest supporter wherever he goes,” Cooney says, “but I just don’t think this community is going to let him leave. I think this community will realize that this happens once in a lifetime and say, ‘Hey, we can give this coach and his program what it needs.’ ”

Last season, Florida Atlantic made a surprising run to the Final Four. Then the Owls’ coveted younger trainer, Dusty May, and all the roster made an much more surprising resolution to stick put — even supposing it was once just for yet another yr.

Mark Few may’ve left Gonzaga, a Jesuit faculty with about 5,000 undergrads in Spokane, Wash., for a brand-name program years in the past. Instead, he’s spent 35 years as a grad assistant, assistant and head trainer turning the ones Bulldogs right into a nationally revered model themselves. Sometimes you’ll be able to get the place you’re going from proper the place you might be, and few remember that higher than McMillan.

“If we’re willing to invest in the program at a high level, there’s no reason we can’t do what those other schools have done,” he says. “There’s no reason we can’t build it here. And all things being equal, I’d love to do it in my hometown. So would all the people that started this with me. How great would that be one day, when we make that run, to say, ‘Hey, we talked about it, and we did it.’”

(Top photograph of Bucky McMillan: Courtesy of Samford Athletics)