Bucky McMillan is already defying expectations in only his first few months on campus for Texas A&M basketball. He’s done a lot to infuse this program with excitement after things completely stalled at the end of Buzz Williams’ tenure, especially considering the amount of momentum that was lost following their loss to Michigan in the NCAA Tournament.
He’s done that mostly via picking up players in the transfer portal so far, as there has obviously not been an opportunity for him to make any noise on the actual court yet. However, he’s done a far better job of snagging those portal players than even the most ardent believers thought possible when he was hired.Of course, there’s been plenty of room for McMillan to pick up players in the portal, given that the Aggies had nearly no one on the roster when Bucky took the reins. One statistic showcases just how profound this rebuild facing McMillan is.
Bucky McMillan’s returning scoring for Texas A&M pales in comparison to rest of conference
The Aggies had a solid and well-loved core of players over the last few years, but all of those players have moved on— either via the portal or running out of eligibility. With that in mind, this statistic sent out by Jon Rothstein shouldn’t be surprising— but it’s still kind of shocking to see it put in these terms.SEC returning scoring by percentage:
Arkansas 45%
Missouri 44.1%
Florida 40.6%
Alabama 34.9%
Vanderbilt 34.3%
Kentucky 33.2%
Mississippi State 32%
Texas 31.9%
Georgia 26.3%
Tennessee 18.4%
Ole Miss 17.2%
Auburn 15.9%
Oklahoma 10%
LSU 9.8%
South Carolina 8.6%
Texas A&M 0%
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) June 21, 2025
Most of the teams on this list are somewhere in the 30s in their percentage of returning scoring. The Aggies, of course, have a big fat goose egg.
If nothing else, this brings to mind that, though the Aggies have a great assemblage of talent that they’ve put together via the portal, it’s still quite a task to get them all to mesh. McMillan has the ingredients, but this season will be a true test of how good of a chef he actually is,
