Samford Hires Lennie Acuff As New Men’s Basketball Coach

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - April 9, 2025

Lennie Acuff has been hired as the men’s basketball coach at Samford University. Acuff takes over the spot left vacant when Bucky McMillan accepted the Texas A&M head coaching job.

The 60-year-old Acuff is the most successful coach in UAH history and spent the past six seasons coaching at Lipscomb University. Acuff, a Huntsville, native was 454-223 in 22 seasons at UAH. He led his team to eight Gulf South Conference championships and the Chargers advanced to the NCAA Division Tournament 11 times under Acuff. His UAH teams ended the season three times in the Sweet 16 and two in the Elite Eight.

This past season, Acuff led Lipscomb to the A-Sun regular season co-championship, the A-Sun Tournament championship and the program’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2018. The Bison finished 25-10 after dropping an 82-55 decision to No. 3 seed Iowa State in a NCAA Tournament first round game. Acuff was 110-82 in his six seasons and had at least 20 wins in each of his final three seasons.

Acuff began his coaching career at Belhaven College and Berry College. He was a combined 96-99 in two seasons at Belhaven and four seasons at Berry.

He is taking over a program that did big things under McMillan’s leadership. McMillan was 99-52 in his five seasons and finished with 21 wins or more in each of his final four seasons. His 2023-24 team won the SoCon regular season title, the SoCon Tournament title and finished the year 29-6 after dropping a 93-89 decision to Kansas in a NCAA Tournament first round game.