I was not a fan of the McMillen hire. In fact I laughed out loud when I heard it. Wasn't happy with the early results, even in wins, either. I just seemed like playground basketball. But he turned this group of guys into something different. For him to take these guys, many of whom would barely see the court on other P4 teams, even after loosing Mgbako has been nothing sort of miraculous. They are on the precipice of having a chance to play on the biggest stage in college basketball. Regardless of what happens the last 4 games (and I think we likely go 3-1, 2 and 2 at the worst) what he has done, is in my opinion the finest coaching job I've seen in my 65 years. I don't care what Miami, St. Louis, Michigan or anyone else does. The COTY is in College Station Texas.

As good as he did with the roster he probably did better with his staff.

Mgbako, Griffin, Agee, Clemence, Hill, Fede and Pop had all played major minutes at the P4 level before coming to A&M. Holloway played in the NCAA tournament. Vinson played as a freshman at tu.

People act like Bucky has taken the Little Giants and turned them into an NCAA tournament team, which is really selling most of our guys WAY short.

What's so impressive is how quickly he was able to get those guys to campus and how he has gotten them all to buy in and gel in his system. But they were all really good players before they got here.

The thing that excites me is what will Bucky do with a full offseason? We don't need "better" players, per se, but more so "better players for Buckyball."

With a full offseason, Bucky is going to have more time (and options) to identify and grab the exact attributes he wants and needs to run his system.

What's so impressive is that he has taken this hodge-podge roster of guys who are very talented but maybe not exactly what he needs and gotten them to perform as well as they have in his system.

A team of role players so maybe that's why they're rowing in the same direction. Mgakpo was supposed to be the bell cow.

Mgbako was a massive loss.

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But they were all really good players before they got here.

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The truth is somewhere between us fielding a team of walk-ons we scouted at the rec over the summer and "they were all really good players."

The only player we have that you'd say was an established high level player is Isaacs and he's kind of his own unique situation with him working back from injury. Griffin was fine at Kansas last year (though better at Alabama the year before.) Hill was NC State's best player but they were an awful team. Agee was USC's like sixth best scorer and third best rebounder and that team sucked too. Clemence practically didn't exist at Kansas.

But yeah it's still very impressive. We've taken a team of Robins and we're on the cusp of an NCAA Tournament bid. Excited to see what the future looks like when we get some Batmen (? Batmans?).

Yeah and I agree, I've been banging that drum all season. Really before the season when people were talking about us potentially being absolutely awful. I was telling people we better not be because this roster was pretty pricey.

A lot of people put up a lot of money to field a competitive team, so we needed to at least be competitive otherwise you risk that money drying up and the Bucky era blowing up on the launchpad.

The biggest thing this team lacks is height and that has shown itself against some of the bigger teams where we got clobbered on the boards. And it's not just the bigs. Our guards are also on the shorter side for the most part.

If Bucky can get some bigger players that still fit his style, we will be just fine.