During his Wednesday afternoon media availability, Texas A&M basketball's Bucky McMillan was far from defensive.
Yet, the “realistic” head coach didn't exactly come to the defense of his defense, which will need to be drastically improved before the Aggies (2-1) face Central Florida (2-1) on Friday night at 7 p.m. CT inside Reed Arena.
“This group is not the best individual defending group,” McMillan said. “When we're making shots and threes, we're going to be pretty good. ... When we're not making those threes because we're not the best individual defenders, we need to be really focused on locking up in team defense.
“We didn't guard on the ball well, and then our team defense didn't keep people out of the paint.”
After their first loss of 2025-26, McMillan & Co. immediately get another opportunity vs. another Big 12 team as the Knights are the second of A&M's five non-conference matchups vs. power conference opponents.
“Could we have played a lesser team and some of that been masked and won somehow? Yeah, for sure,” McMillan said. “All these Power Five games are going to be a real challenge.”
UCF can score. Led by 6-foot-5 guard Riley Kugel's 20.0 points per game average, the Knights have surpassed at least 80 points in each of their three games.
Most recently, UCF scored 97 in a win over Florida A&M on Tuesday. Before that, they poured in 93 in a loss to Vanderbilt over the weekend.
Needless to say, the Knights will stress the press-happy Aggies defensively.
Indeed, the half-court defense must be night-and-day different come Friday.
“The fix for that is not as easy short-term as you hope because if you're an individual great defender, lock him up,” McMillan said. “When it comes down to defense and rotations and all of that, it takes some continuity.
“It will take time, and that's why I've been realistic about this group. I said there's going to be some days we look great, some days we don't look great. It'll start looking better and better the further we go along.”
A&M could receive a boost as early as Friday should Mackenzie Mgbako make his Aggie debut.
The 6-foot-9, 225-pound forward — A&M's prized portal pickup — has missed time while recovering from a foot injury.
McMillan indicated that Mgbako could return “sometime in the next 10 days.”
His physical presence would bolster the Aggies at both ends as the NBA Draft prospect averaged 12.2 points in each of his two seasons at Indiana.
Regardless of whether Mgbako plays, it's safe to expect A&M's game plan to look different vs. UCF.
“We're learning this team,” McMillan said. “What can we be good at? How will we find ways to get stops? We're changing things as well to help this group. I want to win. You'll see us be much better at not allowing teams to get shots at the rim.”
Doing so successfully, thus beating the Knights, would signal A&M's first resume-building block.
And beating Power Five teams is nothing to be defensive about.
