Sean Miller shares familiarity with Bucky McMillan, Texas A&M rivalry

The Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies are both going into the 2025 men’s basketball season with a new look on the bench. Sean Miller and Bucky McMillan are taking over at their respective schools and are excited to once again renew the rivalry.

Miller shared what connection he has with McMillan at the SEC spring meetings. It’s through Colby Jones, a current NBA player whom they both coached at the high school and college levels, respectively.

“So, an amazing fact,” Miller said. “Bucky was Colby Jones’ high school coach in Birmingham, Alabama. I was Colby Jones’ college coach at Xavier. Colby Jones, if you don’t know him, he got drafted in the early second round. He’s currently an NBA player, most recently with the Washington Wizards, an amazing kid and connected to somehow, the University of Texas and Texas A&M’s basketball coaches. I think if you bet on that about four years ago, there would be a lot of people that would take the bet that that wouldn’t be the case.”

Miller has consistently worked as a college coach. That wasn’t the case for McMillan. He began his career in the high school ranks, first as an assistant and then as the head coach at Mountain Brook High School near Birmingham. In 2020, he’d get his shot at a college job when Samford hired him after more than a decade in high school.

While at Samford, McMillan led the Bulldogs for five seasons. Over the course of that time, he went 99-52 and 54-29 in Southern Conference play. He had inherited a team coming off a 10-win season going into the pandemic. He’d win two regular season championships, and one conference tournament championship, and go to the NCAA Tournament once.

“So, that’s really my familiarity,” Miller said. “And also, I know that he had great success at Samford.”

Now, McMillan is tasked with getting Texas A&M over the hump next season. The Aggies are coming off a strong season under Buzz Williams before he left for the Maryland job. Miller, on the other hand, is looking at a bit of a rebuild with Texas. He replaces Rodney Terry, who took the Longhorns to the First Four last season.

The rivalry between Texas and Texas A&M goes back to 1917. Since then, the two have met 227 different times and the Longhorns lead the series 169-88. This past season, however, was their first back in the same conference since the 2011-12 season when they were both in the Big 12. They had played a few times since then, but making these conference matchups has certainly revived the rivalry.