For those Auburn fans going to Neville Arena tonight expecting one of the classic shove-em-down and drag-him-out fights between the Tigers and Texas A&M that were usual when Buzz Williams was in charge of the Aggies, they'd better get ready for another type of basketball: Bucky Ball.
Granted, people in the Yellowhammer State should know Bucky Ball by now, as Bucky McMillan, the first-year Texas A&M coach, made his brand of basketball famous during his time at Samford University and, before that, Mountain Brook High School outside Birmingham.
It’s a non-stop, full-court press, first-shot-is-the-best-shot type of offense that the Aggies run now, and Steven Pearl knows his guys are in for a challenge against the Aggies.
“Really dynamic offensively. The first shot they like is going up,” Pearl said. “They try to speed you up, defensively. They’re going to press for 40 minutes.”
Texas A&M scores points in a hurry
A&M comes into the game fifth in scoring offense in the nation, putting up 94.7 points per game, while also shooting a high amount of three-pointers, averaging 30.2 shots from beyond the arc every game. It won’t be much different than Auburn’s last opponent, Georgia, who leads the nation in scoring and is right behind McMillan’s team by shooting 30 three-pointers per game.
While Georgia also pressed for the entire game, what makes the Aggies different is the type of pressure they bring.
“Texas A&M's a little more aggressive, and they're pressing,” Pearl said. “They're going to blitz you a little bit more and try and get you to do things that you don't typically practice.
“Theirs is a little more unique because they do more things out of it and they're way more aggressive, and I think they're better on ball defenders than most of the teams that we've played, and they create more turnovers off of it. So our guys got to be assertive. They can't be casual.”