Analyst Raves About Texas A&M Hiring Bucky McMillan, Shades Buzz Williams

“The easy answer is Texas A&M. I think Texas A&M today sits in a much better position with Bucky McMillan to get to a Final Four than it did under Buzz Williams,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “And I know it’s easy to pile on Buzz Williams after he left. He was a good coach. He wasn’t a great coach. He could take you to the tournament, he might win you a game. He wasn’t going to get you too much farther than that. I think Bucky McMillan has a chance to, to completely be an absolute game-changer in the SEC.”

McMillan of course, is relatively new to coaching at the college level, all things considered.

Just five years ago, McMillan was coaching Mountain Brook High School, before moving on to his first college job with Samford. And just five years after that, he has a job in the SEC.

Nevertheless, Finebaum believes McMillan has a chance to be not just the best hirings of this coaching carousel cycle, but one of the best hires in years.

“Anybody who has been up close with Bucky McMillan the last however many years at Mountain Brook (High School) and, obviously the last couple years at Samford understands what we’re saying. And that’s okay,” Finebaum said. “I don’t need to convince A&M fans because they were more hung up on their athletic director the other day, was he running coaches off. Instead, he went and, to me, made one of the best coaching hires I’ve seen in many, many years.”