The former Indiana manager is now at Michigan. Could the Hoosiers pry him away?
This article is part of a series profiling potential candidates for the Indiana men’s basketball coaching job. The others will be linked below.
Just two seasons ago Dusty May was among college basketball’s greatest success stories.
May brought lowly Florida Atlantic into the spotlight with a 32-win season that went all the way through the Conference USA Tournament and onto March Madness and the Final Four. It wasn’t a cinderella run of a middling mid-major getting hot just in time for March, the Owls were good from their first game onto their last.
That run also pretty instantly made him a candidate for the Indiana job at some point. May is from Greene County, Indiana, and started his career in basketball as a student manager under Bob Knight.
The timing wasn’t right that year or last, with Indiana coming off of a solid season in 2022-23 and electing to retain Mike Woodson for another year following a disappointing 2023-24. May was bound to leave Boca Raton at some point last offseason and was connected to openings at Louisville and Ohio State before ultimately deciding to take the Michigan job.
Which makes this a bit trickier than other candidates.
Michigan is a lot of things, a solid job in a stable league, a conference rival for Indiana and a place where May will never necessarily be in the spotlight with the shadow of the Big House looming over the Crisler Center.
Moving on from a job like Michigan after just one season would be a very difficult decision no matter how you slice it. The Indiana job provides access to greater resources but with the added cost of a much larger spotlight.
Would May want that kind of spotlight? How strong would the pull to come home be? It’s worth considering with this one.
Now, what about Dusty May the coach?
His first few seasons at FAU don’t exactly jump off a page, but that’s to be understood. May was a first-time head coach after spending years working his way up the assistant ranks from Eastern Michigan to Florida.
It was going to take time to build up a program like FAU… but did it really?
Prior to May’s arrival the Owls had logged all of two top-200 finishes in KenPom’s overall efficiency rankings in program history. In May’s six years in Boca Raton, FAU never once ranked lower than 191st in the final efficiency rankings.
The signs were apparent relatively early that May was at the very least raising the floor for the Owls with the ceiling yet to be determined. The program obviously wasn’t going to become a Final Four mainstay or win 30+ games every season, but May’s first few seasons aren’t as middling as they appear at first glance, a foundation was being built.
Now he’s built Michigan into a very real contender for the Big Ten in year one. His coaching achievements speak for themselves.
May’s teams don’t necessarily lean offensive or defensive but one side of the ball isn’t neglected in favor of the other. The Owls’ defense fell off last season but that was to be somewhat expected after a run to the Final Four and a conference move.
His offenses play a more modern style with an approach that leverages 3-point shooting, which May teams tend to do pretty well.
As far as demeanor, May has a pretty calm approach on the sideline and isn’t prone to blowing up on either players or officials. It’s a coaching tactic used by much of the upper echelon of the sport with the mindset that a calm coach will reflect itself on a team that’ll be less rattled in high-pressure situations.
May would certainly work at Indiana, the question is whether or not he would take the job should it be offered.