Bucky McMillan explains what ‘Bucky Ball’ moniker means

The Texas A&M Aggies are going to have a new look on the court in the 2025-26 season. After all, with new head coach Bucky McMillan comes his style of play, often going by the moniker of Bucky Ball.

Recently, McMillan spoke to Jon Rothstein. There, he explained that the term Bucky Ball actually goes back to his time as a head coach at the high school level because of how different the teams he coached were from others in the area.

“It’s funny,” Bucky McMillan said. “Somebody asked me that the other day from up here. So, when I was coaching high school basketball in Alabama back in the day, all the coaches in the suburban schools they played in the ’30s and ’40s. Really slow. Ran the flags. No shot clock. Shoot it after a minute, and we were just — if I coached, we were never going to do that. We were going to trap until they shot the ball. Shoot as quickly as possible. Take a lot of threes.”

Bucky McMillan began his coaching career at Mountain Brook High School in Alabama as an assistant in 2006. He became that school’s head coach in 2008 and held the role through 2020. There, he’d play a more modernized game than other coaches were used to, and the moniker of Bucky Ball was born. As he found success, it changed its meaning too.

“So, some of the old school coaches in the area used to say it as a negative, right? Like it wasn’t disciplined basketball if you played fast and you shoot threes. Like, ‘Oh, they’re just playing Bucky Ball over there.’ You know? That kind of mindset. Then we started winning a lot,” McMillan said. “And then it became known as a positive in the community that I coach in.”

In 2020, Bucky McMillan made a jump from high school to college where he became the head coach at Samford. While there, he put together a record of 99-52 over five seasons. That included a conference title, NCAA Tournament appearance, and NIT appearance. He did that with Bucky Ball, which he now takes to Texas A&M, looking to help the Aggies make noise in the SEC.

“Basically, up-tempo basketball. Shoot a lot of threes. You see more and more of it today,” McMillan said. “But 15 years ago people thought a three-point shot might be a bad shot. We’ve always been a high volume three-point shooting team, up-tempo team.”

Clearly, Bucky Ball has taken McMillan a long way. Undoubtedly, he’ll continue to lean on it as he hopes to get the Aggies back to the NCAA Tournament.