Texas A&M’s push to rebuild its basketball pipeline in the 2027 class got a major boost on Monday, when four-star small forward Dylan Jones announced he was committing to the Aggies.
Jones, a 247Sports top-40 prospect in the cycle and the No. 1-ranked player in Tennessee, chose Texas A&M over Tennessee, Providence, Memphis and other schools. He becomes the latest high-end recruiting win for Bucky McMillan, who is trying to reestablish the program’s high school recruiting after landing blue-chip four-star guard Chace Richardson earlier this year.
Jones brings the kind of profile McMillan is clearly targeting: strong, versatile and capable of scoring in bunches when a game tilts his way. The 2027 forward is now the highest-rated recruit McMillan has signed at Texas A&M, a notable early marker for a coach entering his second season after guiding the Aggies to the NCAA Tournament in Year 1.
The groundwork for that kind of start has also been laid through the portal and the staff around McMillan. Texas A&M added former Kansas State shooting guard PJ Haggerty this offseason after he averaged nearly 24 points per game last season, giving the roster a proven scorer to pair with the incoming talent. In Sunday’s exhibition against SMU, Haggerty led the Aggies with 28 points and avoided what could have been a serious injury ahead of next Tuesday’s season opener.
Jones said the fit with McMillan’s staff stood out from the jump.
“I feel like the relationship I have with the coaching staff feels different. Coach Bucky and his staff are a bunch of basketball heads just like me..
They’re getting a winner. I’m a guy who can do anything it takes to win.
Gig ‘Em”
McMillan’s early imprint has come quickly, and part of that shows in the assistants around him. According to the source of the commitment, his staff played a major role in landing Jones, giving Texas A&M another sign that the recruiter-to-recruit relationship is clicking in a hurry.
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