BULLARD, Texas — Monday night, the Bullard Panthers basketball team beat Texarkana-Pleasant Grove convincingly, winning a playoff game for the first time since 2010. Winning just three games last season one could say the team took a complete 180, so what’s changed? Insert coach Dean Nuckolls.
"I just came in here, and I was just me," Nuckolls said. "You know, I was at the LaPoynor for 15 years and made the playoffs every year there. But I guess I, maybe set the bar higher. I expect more from the kids, I set guidelines and I want them to be followed and there's discipline when they're not. It's just expected to be met and the kids did. The kids here have rose to the challenge, and they do everything I ask them to do. They're extremely coachable and great kids."
In his very first season at head coach, he’s done what hasn’t been done in over a decade for the program. He can also thank his son, Garrett Nuckolls, who helps lead the team from a player standpoint.
"Well, really, I try to make my teammates feel like it doesn't matter, right?" Garrett said. "Come in with the same focus as you did at the beginning of the year. This game is no different than the first six games that we won, like just hey, there's no difference."
With every good team, once the winning starts, the fans come.
"When the season first started our crowds you know, this home side over here, wasn't packed, wasn't full," Coach Nuckolls said. "And as the year went on, more and more people started to come and that the student section was growing."
Coming into this next round of the playoffs, Bullard will have a tough test facing a very experienced Brownsboro team, but Garrett has a message for his team…
“As long as we come into this next matchup and have fun at the end of the game, no matter the result, we shouldn’t hold our heads low.”