Samford’s men’s basketball team has been on a historic run over the past few seasons that has captured the hearts of so many Samford students and fans. The excitement has come to be known as Bucky Ball named after head coach Bucky McMillan’s unique and extreme play style that prioritizes full court press, 3-pointers and constant subbing.
Last year, Samford won the Southern Conference tournament and appeared in March Madness. Samford lost in a close game with a controversial call that ended our historic season short of the round of 32.
“I do think we’ll be back here (NCAA tournament), and I do think we will win here,” said McMillan during the post-game press conference of last year’s march madness game.
If Samford wants to make it back to seek its revenge on March Madness, it’s going to need to lock in and play its best basketball.
Though this year has been another historic season in the grand scheme of Samford basketball history, which doesn’t have a strong history of success, there has been a lot of regression from last year’s team.
One of those regressions is that sometimes Bucky Ball feels more concerned about its popularity at home games than dominating the other team.
A recent example of that is Samford losing to its recently developed rival Furman University last week at home. In a game that highlighted how beatable we are as a team, Samford struggled to get rebounds and to make good shots in the first half.
“What cost us the game was our first half shot selection,” said McMillan in a press conference after the recent Furman loss.
Aside from a few rough calls that didn’t go Samford’s way down the stretch, we also struggled to finish the game, but if I know anything about being a sports fan it’s that you can’t rely on referees.
Bucky Ball needs to tighten up on its mistakes if it wants to run the table in the SoCon tournament. This first starts with better shot selection and possession security.
For Bucky Ball to work as a method, it requires a lot of three-point shots. However, it requires good three-point shot selection because you can’t waste possessions against good teams.
Secondly Bucky Ball needs to focus on turnovers. We create a lot of turnovers with full court press but wasting the advantage by slipping or passing the ball away will kill any advantage that causing turnovers creates. Every Bucky Ball box score should have Samford leading in the turnover categories by ten if Samford wants to make March Madness.
Hopefully, all marketing distractions will cease when Samford plays in Ashville for the SoCon tournament, but that also brings me to my last point of improvement.
If Samford wants to make March Madness and seek its revenge against whatever higher seeded opponent we get, they must tune out the fans and media down the stretch.
The boys need to lock in and focus on the flow of the game. Every one of Samford’s players can have a big game and carry the weight of being the star player for the night. It’s one of the most unique aspects of this group of guys.
It’s strange because in the past, as a follower of Bucky Ball, I could predict the load of scoring would come from players like Ques Glover, Logan Dye, Jermaine Marshall, A.J. Staton-McCray or Achor Achor, but this year I never know who is going to be the man to step up.
Ideally, all the players will be able to tune out whatever distractions they have before this tournament, and all eleven players who regularly see the floor will average 13 to 20 points per game in the tournament.
In this past Saturday’s game against Western Carolina, the team was able to correct all of which I’ve raised concerns over. However, they need to keep these adjustments up to get a shot at March Madness.
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