If you’re a college sports Pollyanna who pounces every time a college coach leaves an ideal situation, shaking your finger at all who surmise the coach is leaving because of what’s going on in college sports, stand down on Dusty May.
That’s absolutely the case here. The Athletic’s CJ Moore has covered May as closely as anyone over the past several years, walking with him from Lucas Oil Stadium to the team hotel after each day of Michigan’s national title-winning week, so take it from Moore: It’s all too much, even for a guy who seems to have it all.
It’s all too much, that is, when weighed against the possibility of coaching Cooper Flagg and a Dallas Mavericks franchise that has two first-round picks in a mega-loaded NBA Draft on Tuesday. It’s not like May is leaving to start a pizza franchise or see if he can make it on “The Voice” (might be a bit raspy for that).
Still, when you’ve done what he’s done in a flash at Michigan, and you have a top-five team coming back with a real shot at repeating — which would make him the 18th coach in the history of the sport with multiple titles and the ninth to go back to back — and you leave that? You are lending factual evidence to the (oft-dramatic) testimonials about the unsustainability of this college athletics era.
And if you do well, you might inspire a brain drain.
Dusty May leaving for pros is familiar for Michigan fans
Austin Meek
The NBA has largely laid off college coaches in recent years. Over decades, they have mostly failed in the association. If Rick Pitino can’t get it done, who can? John Beilein, a magnificent teacher and tactician who was lured from Michigan by the Cleveland Cavaliers seven years ago, flamed out in months.
Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan (go get him, Michigan) are moderate success stories after wildly successful college tenures. The best of the bunch is Larry Brown, the last defending collegiate champ to make this move, from Kansas to the San Antonio Spurs in 1988 — and the only coach to win NCAA and NBA titles. He also had more jobs than a bad actor trying to pay rent in Manhattan.
May could be different, considering the 49-year-old former Indiana student manager’s rapid rise in recent years. And the opportunity that awaits him. And the professionalization of college basketball, presumably aiding the transition — a transition to a magical land of multi-year contracts and rosters that don’t have to be totally overhauled each year.
Already, the NBA has come after UConn’s Dan Hurley. He was close, turning down the Los Angeles Lakers in 2024 after he became the eighth coach to win back-to-back NCAA titles. The Mavs went after Duke’s Jon Scheyer, per The Athletic’s Brendan Marks, and were denied before pivoting to May.
Those two and other young college coaches such as Todd Golden, Nate Oats, Ben McCollum and Josh Schertz might soon opt for the (fully) professional circuit soon rather than settle in for the long-term college careers that would have been safer bets before this era. May leaving Michigan right now should open eyes to the possibility.
It should be pointed out that Michigan, while a five-star job from most angles, does lag behind the upper crust of the sport in terms of fan fervor. Some of the scenes at Crisler Center last season did not rise to the level of a historically great team. May certainly noticed. Still, he was as set up to keep thriving as a coach can be right now. And he’s out.
Other coaches in the midst of success have left the sport in recent years and cited the chaos, but they retired — Mike Krzyzewski at 75, Roy Williams at 70, Jay Wright at 60, Tony Bennett at 55. Wright and Bennett were too young. That’s still not the same as a coach in his 40s leaving a potential repeat run on the table for the volatility of the NBA.
College athletics, led to its current reality by the self-serving and the short-sighted, needs as many bright young people as possible. There’s a lot to love about men’s college basketball right now, and the passion and money ensure more bright and young on the way. Four years ago, only the mid-major aficionados among us knew of Dusty May.
But yes. He’s more than a great coach now. He’s a symptom, and only the willfully ignorant would try to claim there’s no illness to treat.