When former head coach Buzz Williams departed to Maryland following the 2024-2025 season, Texas A&M men’s basketball was plunged into a sea of uncertainty. Thanks to the transfer portal and exhausted eligibility, the Aggies had all but one player — sophomore forward Chris McDermott — leave College Station, not to mention their entire coaching staff fleeing the coop.
Stuck on the latter end of the coaching carousel and needing a roster fast, the Aggies made their pick on April 5, 2025: Samford head coach Bucky McMillan. A three-time Southern Conference Coach of the Year, McMillan’s up-tempo offense and aggressive play style are polar opposites to what A&M fans had grown accustomed to with Williams’ board-crashing identity.
But the vision was there.
In just a few months, McMillan put together a coaching staff and a ragtag collection of mercenaries set to don the Maroon and White through 2026. There were growing pains, as expected, with back-to-back losses to Oklahoma State and UCF, dropping the Aggies to a 2-2 start, prompting some folks to write the season off as a lost cause — but not McMillan.
“What I can say to all Aggie fans is that this is not what you are going to expect of our program,” McMillan said following the 87-63 loss in Stillwater, Oklahoma. “I know we’re going to get this thing right and hang with us because when we do, it will be that much better.”
And lo and behold, halfway through the season, A&M has done just that.
After losing two straight, the Aggies have won 14 of their last 16 matchups, including two winning streaks of at least five games. Three school records were broken in the process, two of which were in the same contest. A&M’s 18 3-pointers against Manhattan were the most in program history, as was sophomore guard Rubén Dominguez’s individual performance as he drained 10 from beyond the arc.
A&M, which hadn’t scored 100 points in a game in five years, has eclipsed the century mark six times this season — the most in program history. Three of those occasions occurred in consecutive games, with the Aggies gaining more confidence with each performance.
McMillan has transformed A&M into an offensive machine, scoring below 74 points just once this season. While perhaps not the most glaring benchmark on paper, and a seemingly cherry-picked statistic, the shock value comes from the fact that the Aggies averaged 74.3 points per game in Williams’ final year; under McMillan, they are averaging 91.8 points per game.
The Maroon and White’s scoring average is the seventh best in the entire country and third in the Southeastern Conference. League play has brought out the very best in McMillan’s squad, as its scoring average has remained steady at 83.43 points per game, and it has fought its way to the top of the conference standings with a 6-1 record.
Such a drastic improvement in scoring from a season ago can be credited in part to the Aggies’ efficiency from long range, with Dominguez leading the way with his 66 made threes. As a unit, A&M ranks sixth in the country with an average of 11.5 makes per game from behind the arc, which, halfway through the season, is almost a 25% increase from last year.
Additionally, McMillan’s seven-game start to SEC play is tied for the best start to a first-year A&M coaching run in program history, having a chance to have the standalone record with a victory over Georgia on Saturday, Jan. 31.
Individually, graduate student F Rashaun Agee is making the most of his final year of eligibility at the collegiate level. After being awarded a waiver following months in court, the USC transfer has been McMillan’s do-it-all, No. 1 enforcer under the basket, as his nine double-doubles rank second most in the SEC.
Even with the loss of NBA Draft prospect F Mackenzie Mgbako for the remainder of the season, A&M has five different players averaging double figures every game, and its bench has been among the most productive in the nation. McMillan’s 15-man-deep approach in his brand of basketball has equated to 38.6 points per game off the bench, the third-best average in the country.
While Agee and Dominguez have been neck and neck in points per game, eight different players have led the Aggies in scoring, including a true masterclass from graduate student F Zach Clemence against South Carolina on Jan. 24.
After scoring more than 12 just once during his three-year collegiate career, the San Antonio native fired off seven three-pointers against the Gamecocks and helped the Aggies turn a seven-point deficit into a 23-point margin of victory.
Twenty games down and at least 11 more to go, the Aggies have a treacherous journey ahead if they are to make it to the NCAA Tournament. From three AP-ranked opponents on the road to rematches with bitter rivals, A&M will need its best foot forward to steady its trajectory to the “Big Dance.”
Luckily, for fans and players alike, it seems the Aggies have found just the right man to lead them to the promised land. A&M will have a break from midweek action, but will return to court against Georgia at noon on Saturday.
