Samford’s Men’s Basketball team should host a scrimmage against themselves where they invite “The Red Sea” to come heckle their own team.
Bucky McMillan, the head coach of Samford Men’s Basketball, has become well known for his fast-paced play known as Bucky Ball. He is also well known for how skillfully he has marketed the Samford basketball program. That is why I think this theoretical scrimmage is right up his ally.
Under his leadership, Samford Men’s Basketball has arguably seen the most success in program history. Going into this next season, Samford is the number one ranked Southern Conference team in the preseason coaches’ poll.
Last season, Coach McMillan led Samford to a team-record 26 regular season wins. They also won the SoCon tournament earning them a bid to March Madness.
Men’s basketball was also undefeated at home, proving that Seibert stadium is a tough stadium to play in. Part of the reason it has become a hostile place for teams to play is because of its dedicated student section who often does deep research on its opponents to get inside of their heads.
Samford’s student section is one of the most dedicated student sections in the SoCon.
Ironically, the only thing that McMillan has really even struggled with, if you can even call it struggling, is with the teams away performances.
All of Samford’s five losses last season were on the road. The year before that, seven of their 11 losses were on the road. In the 2021-22 season, eight of the 11 losses were at opponents’ stadiums.
Since Samford has proven itself as one of the hardest places to play in the SoCon, McMillan should host a sit in on a 40-minute scrimmage for Samford students to come simulate an away environment.
This could also be an easy way of fundraising for the team, as they could sell tickets to fans around Birmingham for this game.
One of the great parts of McMillan’s style of play is that it uses a lot of different players, so this scrimmage would help get a lot of different players’ experience in front of a hostile crowd.
Not to mention, since Samford students go to classes with a lot of these athletes and are friends with a lot of these athletes, the heckling would likely be the most personal heckling they could ever face.
This would likely create an impenetrable shield of toughness around our players causing any professional Furman, Mercer or Wofford heckler to leave zero effect on any Samford player or coach.
It is possible that things could get out of hand at this theoretical scrimmage causing the players to perform worse at home later, but I think that after the team sees how their fans still brutally mistreat visiting opponents, they will know that “The Red Sea” is behind them.
This scrimmage would significantly increase the team’s chances of winning on the road. Which would highly increase team bonding and team confidence, which would increase our chances of winning every game this year.
Our potential success after this scrimmage would put Samford in the national spotlight, increasing our chances of better recruiting and a legitimate national championship run.
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