How the Scott Drew coaching tree at Baylor helped prepare Paul Mills for Wichita State

When Scott Drew hired Paul Mills on his first staff at Baylor in 2003, Mills was working as a video coordinator on the Rice men’s basketball team.

It was an unpaid volunteer position. Mills’ only income was in the form of a $2,000 stipend for painting the steps in Rice’s basketball arena.

He had no Division 1 coaching experience, but came highly recommended as someone who obsessed with basketball. Mills exceeded that reputation in his 14 years with Drew, the first six as a staffer and the final nine as an assistant coach.

“Paul is a complete basketball junkie,” Drew told The Eagle in an interview Wednesday morning when Wichita State officially announced Mills as its next head coach.

“He can tell you about every Rick Majerus video tape. He’s a true student of the game. When we first got to the Big 12, he was studying Eddie Sutton, Bob Knight, Kelvin Sampson, Rick Barnes. He’s studied all of those guys. And if you ever need the movie ‘Hoosiers’ recited line for line, he can do that for you as well.”

Mills is the latest in Drew’s coaching tree to earn a promotion in the coaching world. Former Baylor assistants Jerome Tang (Kansas State), Grant McCasland (North Texas) and Matt Driscoll (North Florida) have all excelled as first-time head coaches after being tutored by Drew.

At his news conference in New York City ahead of K-State’s Sweet 16 game on Thursday, Tang delved into how Drew helped prepare him for success on his own.

“I was blessed to work with Scott and he did a great job of helping prepare me for this,” Tang said. “He never treated me as an assistant, always told me to act like a head coach and treat the program like it was mine.”

When asked specifically about Mills, Tang became emotional thinking about his former colleague.

“I absolutely love Paul Mills,” Tang said. “He’s like a brother to me. So happy for him and his family. He’s going to be incredible because he is passionate about young people and about developing young men. There’s no throttle, no hold-back with him in terms of love and what he pours into his guys.”

Back in Waco, Drew said he beamed with pride when he found out Mills was taking over the Wichita State program. It made him reflect once again on their time spent together.

“He helped us build Baylor basketball into the program it is today,” said Drew, who won the national championship with the Bears in 2021. “He’s a real high-character man, a tremendous family man, a Godly man. Somebody who doesn’t really have a lot of hobbies. It’s just basketball. He loves relationships and loves building them, pouring into them.”

Growing up a basketball fan, Drew remembers Wichita State at the height of its powers in the 1980s and then became plenty familiar with the Shockers when his Baylor teams squared off against them three times during the Gregg Marshall era.

He believes Mills is the perfect coach to lead WSU in the future.

“With the resources and the conference they’re in, there’s no reason why he can’t build Wichita State back into that power they were,” Drew said. “And he’s going to do it the right way. He’s never going to embarrass the school or the community.

“Wichita is going to be very proud of the basketball product they put on the court. Coach Mills is a servant leader and as fans and Shocker nation spend more time with him and get to know him, they are really going to love Coach Mills the person.”

The servant leadership style is one that was taught by Drew at Baylor and the common link between him and his former assistant coaches. Tang credited his former boss for showing him how to create the same culture in his own program.

“Scott really exemplified what it is to be a servant leader,” Tang said. “And so following in that mold of leadership, I’m here to serve these guys, our staff, our community. I want our guys to have incredible experiences that have nothing to do with winning and losing. For them to understand that there’s a great life for them after the ball stops bouncing. They’ve got to be great men and great husbands and great fathers and the characteristics that you have to have in order to do those things.”

It’s safe to say Mills will approach his work at Wichita State the same way. In fact, it reminded Tang of a conversation they once had back in their days together in Waco.

“He said, ‘Tang, 10s hang with 10s and 1s hang with 1s,’” Tang said. “He’s a 10 and he’s going to have some 10s around him.”