Dusty May to Michigan
Some (all?) of our best coaches have lost to Northwestern.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:24 PM ^
Interesting group of ex coaches. Three former NBA guys. A former NBA coach. And Rumeal Robinson’s high school coach.
Turned in 6 straight winning seasons at a place that 4 in the previous 17? And the last two (sans an early tourney out) looked pretty dang good.
I think this guy can coach. If he can take over a dumpster fire like FAU, I think he'll be fine here. Curious to see if he can bring any of his guys with him to help 'speed up' the transition here.
March 24th, 2024 at 11:43 AM ^
Fingers crossed. Go Blue!
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:10 PM ^
Angel Dust
March 23rd, 2024 at 11:53 PM ^
I'm trying to think of coaches of non power programs in the 2000s with one-off final four runs:
- Jim Larranaga - George Mason
- Shaka - VCU
- Porter Moser - Loyola Chicago
- Gregg Marshall - Wichita State
- Brad Stevens - Butler
I guess it's a mixed bag. I believe only one went back to a final four (Larranaga at Miami). Marshall got booted for conduct. Stevens went to the NBA. Shaka has been ok at times, but the hype has exceeded the results to this point. Moser has been bad at Oklahoma.
I think May's resume would pretty easily put him at the bottom of this group of coaches at the time they left those programs. Moser would be the closest comparison.
I somewhat agree, but we won't be happy if we're the "Texas" for May.
Also, Shaka hasn't gone past the round of 32 since his Final 4 run. Maybe this is the year he breaks through, but will we be happy if May takes 13 years to get back to a Sweet 16 or better?
I realize how loose the comparison is, but my point is that the "he made a final 4" fact might also not mean much, if the goal is to get us to the final 4.
I don’t think we should expect May to be Shaka at Texas. Shaka clearly thrives at schools that move heaven and earth for basketball. May is coming from a school that, like Michigan and Texas, only reserves that kind of effort for football.
Additionally, May doesn’t appear to rely on gimmicks as did Smart at VCU. The Texas tenure was basically him learning how to coach normal basketball. I don’t foresee May having a similar challenge here.
Stevens and Butler lost in the championship game in consecutive seasons. Once to Duke and once to UConn.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:11 PM ^
At least he's not Matt Campbell. Remember when 80% of this board thought we should fire Harbaugh and hire him?
March 24th, 2024 at 12:43 AM ^
He may be. We won't know for 3 years or so.
No sure things out there not named Bill $elf. (who bombed out tonight)
We'll see circa 28 if this was a good hire or not.
March 24th, 2024 at 12:05 AM ^
Well that settles it, if you're not excited then I know it was a great hire.
March 24th, 2024 at 12:15 AM ^
"One good year" is sometimes what it takes to identify coaching talent. In a market where coaches' leashes get shorter and shorter, schools are even faster to jump on the first mid-major coach that has a decent season.
Your problem is not with May (or even Enfield, for that matter). It's with a system that doesn't afford teams any other option. This is college sports in 2024.
Look at FAU's history. Even the 17-21 win seasons Dusty was having before the FF run were extremely impressive at FAU.
I will take the over for Dusty on 8 wins next year.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:13 PM ^
I will take the over on Hail to the Victors on 8 wins next year
LOL more mid.
March 24th, 2024 at 12:31 AM ^
As opposed to who? Who specifically is your candidate?
Charlie Bucket. Good hoops name, keeps things fairly clean (ceilings excluded).
You think he would have been our golden ticket?
Good hire.
His Wikipedia page is updated, so I guess it's happening!
March 24th, 2024 at 12:21 AM ^
Nothing's official until it's on Wikipedia! :)
Do any of his players come with him?
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:04 PM ^
Any...or all?
That would be unpecedented. I am for it!
March 23rd, 2024 at 11:22 PM ^
They all announce they are, then we get overly excited for an influx of mid-major transfers, then we get ominous rumblings that they might not be coming, then they individually post things on Instagram like "God has a plan" ... and then we find out their credits wouldn't transfer or whatever other reason. Then they all go to other P5 teams with absolutely no issues.
March 23rd, 2024 at 11:52 PM ^
I do believe that we will always have admissions issues and disappointments with the Caleb Love and Shannon's that want to transfer in. Really hoping that May is a great recruiter and puts together a staff that can develop players like Beilein and Harbaugh did.
March 24th, 2024 at 12:32 AM ^
I have confidence that May will focus on transfers that can actually get admitted, like Harbaugh. That tends to work out better.
That's assuming there's a way to actually predict what admissions (or the individual departments) will require of incoming transfers. That's the real problem. Even Hinton said he couldn't get some of his Stanford credits approved.
“Right now I’m in General Studies because the credits kind of messed up. I was Human Biology at Stanford. And then, for some reason, they didn’t take a lot of the credits,” Hinton said on Monday. “All my bio credits just dropped. I don't know. It's crazy.”
A reporter replied with the question everyone in the room was thinking: Michigan really didn’t accept credits from Stanford?
“I was like, ‘What in the world?’ I took an intro writing class last semester, and I was like, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on? I took this class freshman year.’ It was crazy,” Hinton explained.
It seems like unless you're a grad transfer, it's just rolling the dice. And you don't have much time to build if your transfers are all graduates.
You can literally check with an online app for about 90% of classes, and you can ask the department ahead of time about others.
...but you're never going to get to transfer more than half the credits needed for a degree in.
...and some of those "Stanford credits" that didn't transfer in were sub-100 level classes.
I'll be honest, I was more sold on DeVries and Medved, but Mays was probably the most in-demand across the broader CBB market. There's something to the said for getting the guy everyone else wanted.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:12 PM ^
Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia agree.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:33 PM ^
There's no comparison here. Matt Patricia never took a team to the championship round as a head coach. May has taken a team to a Final Four.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:38 PM ^
The question still remains of whether that run is more a product of the coach versus the players, but May still deserves a lot of credit for recruiting those players.
Either way, I think this is the best possible hire Michigan could’ve made. Jay Wright was not coming out of retirement, especially not to coach this team, and John Beilein isn’t 10 years younger and all of a sudden willing to throw away who he is over NIL. This guy may not work out, and he probably wasn’t the safest tire, but when you are as low as you are right now, what do you have to lose?
Given where Michigan’s program is right now, I’ll take the upside over the safe hire.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:39 PM ^
Yeah I wasn’t really trying to make a comparison. My reply was in response to the line of “guy everyone else wanted”. As in, the universal top choice among teams looking for who they believe is the best coach.
When Patricia took the Lions HC job, he was universally deemed the best coach out on the market and in highest demand. And we all know how that worked out…
Either way, best of luck to May and the team. Gotta start somewhere.
March 24th, 2024 at 11:00 AM ^
Is that true re: PatRichRod? Everything I saw seemed to think he was a gamble but more or less gave the benefit of the doubt to Bob Quinn. Was he even on other team’s radars?
A top guy on the market and credit to Warde for nabbing him quickly. No idea if it'll work out but I like that UM is being aggressive in the market for a new BB coach.
I'm thinking of your recent exchanges about Warde when I say this: this hire may not work out for whatever reason, but I don't think that anyone can say that Warde botched the firing/hiring process. He dealt with Howard quickly and then landed the coach that most ADs would have gone after.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:02 PM ^
But remember, if it goes wrong, everyone will claim they were saying it all along, and it's all Warde's fault. If it goes right, then yeah, it was the obvious hire, and Warde deserves no credit for it.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:15 PM ^
Co-signed. Good job Warde.
And i can’t stand that tub of goo.
Michigan wasn't going to get a much bigger name than May with the current situation. Going to be interesting to see what he can do with the resources Michigan has available. He also is a Midwest guy, even though he coached mostly in the South.
It’s crazy that a guy from Greene county will now be the head coach at the University of Michigan. That’s something kids only dream about around here. Not a lot going on for people from Greene county. Pretty cool.
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:13 PM ^
Umm where’s Greene county?
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:21 PM ^
Middle of a cornfield, Indiana. I had a teacher from there that did a bit about people from Greene County. They would ask students what they wanted to do when they graduated. They would all say, “farming that’s all we know.”
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:37 PM ^
So, was May inspired to coach by Norman Dale?
March 23rd, 2024 at 10:42 PM ^
Well we could really use a Jimmy Chitwood right about now.