Samford head coach Bucky McMillan has the Bulldogs within the NCAA Event for the primary time in 24 years after successful the primary Southern Convention title in program historical past on Monday.
Not dangerous for a coach who inherited a 10-win program in 2019-20 and was plucked, at 36, from a Birmingham-area highschool, the place Samford is situated.
CBS Sports activities faculty basketball insider reminded that McMillan was head coach at Mountain Brook Excessive College previous to being employed by Samford in April 2020.
On the time of his hiring, AL.com’s Joseph Goodman famous that McMillan was appointed head coach at Mountain Brook when he was solely 24, went 332-74 and received 5 state championships.
Samford (29-5, 15-3 in Southern), joined the convention in 2008 and had one successful season within the 14 years previous McMillan’s arrival
The Bulldogs have regularly gotten higher below his watch, successful six video games within the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season and going 21-11 the previous two seasons, together with a 15-3 mark in convention play final yr.
They have been upset by Chattanooga within the first spherical of the convention match and at last broke by way of this season with their 76-69 win over East Tennessee within the match finals.
Coming into Monday, Samford ranked fifth within the nation in scoring (86.3 factors per recreation) on the power of the nation’s ninth-best subject objective proportion (49.4%) and eighth-best three-point price (39.6%).
Aussie 6-foot-9 junior ahead Achor Achor is the group’s greatest participant, averaging 15.5 factors and 6 rebounds on 59.3% taking pictures. In opposition to East Tennessee, he had 25 factors on 7-of-9 taking pictures, going 11-of-14 from the foul line.
Per Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology replace on March 11, Samford is in line to be a 13-seed. It hasn’t taken lengthy for McMillan to show this system round, and he formally has Samford on the map.
