By ANDREW SIMONSON
HOMEWOOD, Ala. – While Samford Bulldogs fans were disappointed by the news of Bucky McMillan taking the head coaching position at Texas A&M, that feeling was largely replaced by joy when the university announced Lennie Acuff would be his successor.
On Tuesday, April 15, those fans got to meet their new head man as the former Lipscomb head coach was introduced at a special press conference at Harry’s Coffeehouse in Samford’s University Center.
“God has been so good to me,” Acuff said. “He has blessed my family beyond belief, and I’m thankful for that and thankful to be at Samford.”
After president Dr. Beck Taylor and athletic director Martin Newton gave opening remarks, Acuff took the stand to give an introductory address and field questions from local media. Birmingham Sports Media was in attendance, and here are some key takeaways:
While Acuff is neither a Nashville native or a Lipscomb alum, he was very candid in his press conference about his love and devotion for the university.
"If you asked me on Saturday in San Antonio (at the Final Four) if I was going to finish my career at Lipscomb, I would’ve said 99.9 percent,” Acuff said.
Newton decided to test that 0.1 percent by calling Acuff on Sunday, April 6, just two days after McMillan joined the Aggies.The ball rolled quickly from there, with him taking an interview shortly after and changing his mind.
"About 36 hours later, I wasn’t going to retire at Lipscomb," Acuff said.
Newton is often regarded among national circles as one of the most forward-thinking and successful athletic directors in the country, and in arguably the most important coaching hire of his career, he took a bold swing and hit it out of the park.
Acuff is first and foremost a winner, starting his career at Belhaven and Berry before starting a 22-year career at Alabama-Huntsville, winning eight Gulf South Conference titles in Division II while coaching in his hometown.
That led him to Lipscomb, where over the course of six seasons, he earned a 110-82 record, including 20-win seasons in the last three years.
He capped his career with an ASUN Tournament title after winning the regular season title and conference Coach of the Year award, taking the Bisons to the NCAA Tournament, where they would lose to Iowa State in the first round.
Those accolades alone make him a more than worthy successor to McMillan, who won 20 games in four of his six seasons on Lakeshore Drive with a 2024 SoCon Tournament Championshipand a 2025 NIT bid, both the first in program history.
Acuff expressed in his interview and press conference that this was a destination job for him, and his eagerness to stay and build a program at Samford was a key reason why the deal came together quickly.
Acuff has a massive task ahead of him in his first two weeks on the job as the basketball transfer portal closes on Tuesday, April 22.
After entering Samford with just one returning player on the roster, he quickly got fellow Huntsville native Caleb Harrison, a Mr. Basketball finalist in 2023-24 who redshirted last year, to withdraw his name from the portal while also securing Harrison’s former Huntsville High teammate JD Gossett.
The fact that his first two commits are from his hometown may set the tone for Acuff’s recruiting style. He stressed the importance of building relationships with recruits, which isn’t always possible in a fast-paced landscape.
He hopes to invest in his players from the moment he begins recruiting them through their entire time in the program, whether that’s a year or their entire career.
“When I go recruit, you want to have stories and you want to have memories,” Acuff said. “That is what we will chase for these young men. No matter how long we are here, we will invest in young men.”
The one thing he did stress is that Samford would continue to recruit quality men who want to live up to the university’s high standard of character and excellence on and off the court. He said Samford would not compromise that standard or reputation in order to win.
"Winning doesn't negotiate. Culture doesn't negotiate,” Acuff said. “You have to earn it, you have to live it and you have to be about it every day."
One of his notable remarks was that while he used to automatically redshirt freshmen at UAH, he acknowledges that you can’t do that anymore with players wanting to develop through playing and transferring quickly when they can’t.
However, he emphasized player development as a key component of his program, something that should be encouraging for any transfer or recruit looking for a four-year home or a developmental stop along their journey.
While Acuff ran an efficient offense at Lipscomb that ranked 27th in Division I in effective field-goal percentage during the 2024-25 season, it has some key differences to the “Bucky Ball” style that Bulldogs fans grew to love.
The biggest difference is that there isn’t a constant mandate to press. He committed to putting together a product that current and former players could be proud of, which doesn’t necessarily mean a rigidness toward the ways of old.
Acuff has a lot of respect for McMillan dating back to the former Samford coach’s playing days at Mountain Brook High School, but he made one thing clear: he is not a carbon copy of Bucky, nor does he want to be.
"I will not try to be Bucky,” Acuff said. “My job is to keep Samford at the top of the Southern Conference."
However, his efficient offensive style does mean there will be some stylistic similarities to McMillan’s press-oriented tempo offense and defense. While that is the system he will bring to Homewood, one of his most notable soundbites made it sound like he will adopt whatever style helps Samford best succeed.
"We won't be married to a system, we'll be married to winning basketball,” Acuff said.
For a Bulldogs team coming off a year where some of their most notable players were unable to adapt to or consistently perform in McMillan’s preferred system, such flexibility would be a welcome change.
More than anything, Acuff’s Alabama roots were woven throughout his presser.
Like McMillan, the two coaches were born, raised and largely made their livings as coaches in Alabama. The biggest difference is their age, as while McMillan is regarded as one of the fastest-rising young coaching stars in the country, Acuff has seen every era of basketball in Alabama over his 35-year career.
One of his most notable stories came from his debut game as Belhaven’s coach. That day, he lined up against a man named John Brady and the Samford Bulldogs in Seibert Hall.
Samford may have since moved to the Pete Hanna Center and torn up the basketball court in the latest campus rec center renovations, but Acuff’s respect for Samford only persisted in his career.
As a Huntsville native, he remained at UAH for 22 seasons in part because he didn’t want to uproot his family until his children graduated high school. While he was grateful for the opportunity to coach at Lipscomb, it took him further away from his family, some of whom now live in the Birmingham area.
That distance wore on him, but he is grateful to be near his children once again. He expressed gratitude for just eating as a family twice a week, something seemingly simple but something he couldn’t do in Nashville and that he vows not to take for granted today.
While his commitment to his family will likely encourage fans that Acuff is in it for the long haul, it also reflects the way he sees his basketball program–as another family.
Just like on the recruiting trail, he hopes to build long-term relationships that help his players grow into quality men first and foremost. His goal is for those relationships to not only lead to success on the court but bond the team together over the course of the year.
“If there aren’t tears in the locker room after the last game, you’re not doing it right,” Acuff said.
Needless to say, there were no tears in Harry’s Coffeehouse on April 15 as Bulldogs fans welcomed Acuff to their family to start a new era of basketball at Samford University.
This article was written by Andrew Simonson. Follow his other work on X and Instagram @andrewtsimonson.