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Post by SU DOG on Jul 20, 2020 9:30:26 GMT -5
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Post by Cujo on Jul 20, 2020 10:47:18 GMT -5
1. Did you know he had success at Mountain Brook?
2. He's also an excellent recruiter.
3. He's never coached or recruited in college, let alone D1.
4. Is #2 hype or an explanation for #1?
Asking for a friend.
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Post by 77SU on Jul 20, 2020 12:03:09 GMT -5
This story keeps coming to mind for some reason: I must be stupid or incompetent. Flipping the coin, now.
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Post by Smurf on Jul 20, 2020 12:42:56 GMT -5
COVID aside, there are three likely outcomes to the Bucky saga.
1) He succeeds in the next three years and moves on. If he really succeeds, he may move on to an instate SEC school located to the west of Birmingham, thus making the Samford job a true stepping stone. He will not win at SU (20+ wins/NCAA berth/early Tillette kinda success) and stay at Samford. Being that he has heavily recruited transfers, which seems to run counter his statement shortly after being hired that there would be no shortcuts, winning quickly at SU may be what Bucky is shooting for since it provides the best avenue for quick upward mobility in the college basketball world. Is Bucky looking to establish the program on a solid foundation or is he looking to bolster his resume? Certainly both can co-exist, but again, we are loading up with Division I transfers/JUCOs.
2) He fails and is fired when his contract expires (and not before- no buyouts). This would almost certainly entail Newton being canned at that time, if not sooner. A cynical mind might suspect that short term success by Bucky might also help preserve Newton's job and that Newton may have factored this in during the hiring process. Martin may be in such a precarious situation that he cannot afford to keep his job with a hire that is working towards building things slowly from the ground up with lots of freshmen. Therefore, why not hire a guy who ultimately intends to build quickly, It's a high risk here on paper, but Newton is probably to the point where he has to push all of his chips to the center of the table. Winning gradually and with a solid foundation may be what it necessary, but can the fan base and the administration stomach a plea for more patience? I think they could if they can trust the leadership, but Newton's failures have exhausted the confidence that the fan base had in him regarding basketball hires. He has backed himself into a bit of a corner.
3) He essentially neither succeeds nor fails and once again we are stuck with a coach who does just enough at a place like SU to keep his job (13-14 wins a season).
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Post by dtrain44 on Jul 25, 2020 13:49:40 GMT -5
With all due respect, Mr. Smurf....How did you land on the word “saga” to describe the hiring of Bucky?
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Post by Smurf on Jul 25, 2020 15:42:15 GMT -5
By the time all of this is over it will be a saga, one way or another.
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Post by 77SU on Jul 25, 2020 21:56:17 GMT -5
By the time all of this is over it will be a saga, one way or another. MBB has been a saga since the announcement on April 4, 2012, in accordance with the second part of #3 below. Some may even say the saga began around March 11, 2011. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/saga
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Post by dtrain44 on Jul 29, 2020 17:36:53 GMT -5
Thanks for the definitions. It could potentially be a "long detailed account", but for the time being it has been a "short detailed account."
Look, I am not here to debate that Samford basketball hasn't been a "saga" for many years....it has been. The fact of the matter is Bucky McMillan's tenure has not been a saga one bit. You guys make no sense. You come on here dogging on him for conducting podcast interviews, being a good recruiter and creating "buzz" around a program whose biggest "buzz" in the past 5 years was upsetting Nebraska on the road and having half the team transfer out.
Since he has been hired, Samford students have started caring about Samford basketball because of the hope hiring one of the best HS basketball coaches in the country, who just so happens to be from down the road, provides. Samford students are going to go to games (COVID Willing) because he is getting himself out there and making himself relatable. You make fun of "Bucky Ball", but it's his identity and it has worked out pretty well over at Mountain Brook so it would be only fitting to advertise around it so that sellouts occur on nights where Moe's isn't being served.
He has surrounded himself around coaches who have been around the block with Coach Reboul, Arnold, and Rouco. He also brought back Jake Headrick who was beloved...it wasn't a coincidence half the team transferred out when he left.
Speaking of recruiting, he has brought in players that want to play for him and will fit his style of play. There are currently 18 players on the roster...not shabby for being in a pandemic.
It would be awesome for him to build a program like Belmont under Rick Barnes and stay his whole career, but it would be just as awesome for him to build a successful program that gives Samford students, alumni, and fans a taste of the NCAA Tournament, an upset of a blue blood and then move on to bigger and better things. Moving on isn't a bad thing, it is what happens in this country. Coaching a blue blood in Maui the week of Thanksgiving sounds a whole lot better than coaching a SOCON team in a no name tournament in the Bayou.
If he gives us that and then moves on then it was a "saga" that was worth a read.
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Post by 77SU on Jul 29, 2020 20:00:41 GMT -5
Since he has been hired, Samford students have started caring about Samford basketball because of the hope hiring one of the best HS basketball coaches in the country, who just so happens to be from down the road, provides. Samford students are going to go to games (COVID Willing) because he is getting himself out there and making himself relatable. You make fun of "Bucky Ball", but it's his identity and it has worked out pretty well over at Mountain Brook so it would be only fitting to advertise around it so that sellouts occur on nights where Moe's isn't being served. Not sure how students have started caring about Samford basketball since they have not been allowed on campus since 5pm on March 16, 2020. Bucky was not "officially" hired until April 8, 2020. He couldn't even meet his players on campus until this past Friday. There seems to be only a handful of students, who from their social media posts appear to be MBHS grads, that even care about this hire and are planning on going to games. BTW, you can count the number of MBB sellouts in the Hanna Center on one hand. Actually, just one thumb is needed. Bless your heart 44, you are not keeping up with the program. Jake Headrick is not on the staff. There's probably a really good reason why he decided to stay in MO. Some of us have been around long enough to have had a taste of two NCAA tournaments, the upset of a couple of blue blood programs, a last minute loss to a really good Vanderbilt team in OT in Memorial Gym, and what a winning program looks like. Some of us have been watching Samford basketball longer than HCBM has been alive. We had Brady Ball before Bucky went to 1st grade. We have seen it all, good and bad, and have heard story after story how great Samford basketball will become. There was the year all of the games were in the BJCC to take us to the next level. Corts arena will be sold out. We have witnessed the beginning, parts 1, 2, and 3. Hopefully the program will come out of this saga in a better condition than it was on 8 April 2020. If coaching a SoCon team in a "no name tournament in the Bayou" is such a bad thing and our new coach has such a remarkable identity, then why did he not just jump into that blue blood coaching position? Excuse me for being skeptical.
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Post by dcintl on Jul 30, 2020 4:57:31 GMT -5
Welcome to the board dtrain.
As 77 mentioned, many of us have ridden the roller coaster of SU basketball. I was a student at the apex... Fr the year Brady beat LSU (and was then hired away), Jr the year we waltzed in Coleman and swaggered out with the W and made the tournament for the first time in program history, Sr the year we went back to back. We traveled to Jacksonville for conference tournaments, Orlando and Cleveland for NCAA tournaments. And, it's been 20 years since...
Some of us have had that taste of NCAA Tournament success that you mentioned.
Rick Byrd (not Barnes) spent his career investing at Belmont, from NAIA to NCAA. The younger version of Rick Byrd ain't walking through the doors of the Hanna Center anytime soon. But not because he's not out there or willing to be hired...
The AD has had multiple opportunities to connect current Samford basketball with the success of the past, and he has chosen his own path 3 times. We have to be realistic about the fact that our current administration created the pig sty that we're currently mired in.
And that has created healthy skepticism among our longest tenured supporters.
Snazzy (or cheesy) marketing campaigns only feed the skepticism. All of this is part of college athletics in the social media age. If we get more butts in the seats because of the BuckyBall ad campaign, then the marketing team will have accomplished their goal.
Me, I want to see a well-coached team on the floor, a program that reflects well on the university and its values, and an annual top 3 team in the SoCon. Until then, count me with the skeptics.
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