Dusty may work
Hard not to like a coach willing to do the little things and the big things. Here’s a video circulating of Dusty on campus kissing babies while he’s also shaking hands with new recruits elsewhere. Good vibes (for a change).
April 21st, 2024 at 11:18 PM ^
I like this man. He hustles and seems sincere.
+1 Warde.
April 21st, 2024 at 11:21 PM ^
This was a no-brainer for Warde and at least he didn't fuck it up, so he gets credit for that. But any of us could have made this hire, especially because May wanted to be here more than anywhere else.
April 21st, 2024 at 11:27 PM ^
The Warde Manuel Haters Playbook
Good things happen for Michigan sports: It's a no-brainer/Warde didn't fuck it up; Warde has nothing to do with it!
Bad thing happens: It's all Warde's fault! Fire Warde! Fire Santa if he doesn't fire Warde!!
April 22nd, 2024 at 12:23 AM ^
The Warde-hating reflects a massive lack of imagination. People only take what is, and think how it might possibly be even better, without once considering that it might also be worse. The idea that so many people on this blog would risk the success our school's athletic programs have had over the past decade — remembering, again, that not one coach or athlete has leveled one public criticism at Warde for anything, including those who have left (and who therefore could have done so fairly easily) — for the possibility of something better is shocking, given that this has been possibly the most successful decade of Michigan sports in my increasingly long lifetime.
Not me. Thanks, Warde, for all you've done to make us the most successful school across multiple varsity sports I know of.
For edification, how often does a coach or athlete publicly call out an AD? If it is as rare across all of college sports as I think it is, then this fact is not the strong support for Warde that you make it out to be.
And this isn't to dump on Warde. UM is highly successful right now across a wide range of sports (including a meteoric rise in Women's Lax). Whether that's because Warde's been an "A" AD or a "B" AD is beside the point.
Spot on, Clarence. I'm not a fan of Warde but the flaccid dongs constantly whining about every little thing he does and refusing to give him any credit for anything is tiring.
keep in mind there was a pretty substantial contingent that wanted Coach B gone in Dec. every season...... probably a lot of the same people who wanted Jim Harbaugh gone in 2018, 2019, 2020.....
FIRE BAKICH!
keep in mind there was a pretty substantial contingent that wanted Coach B gone in Dec. every season.
This is a fact that a lot of selective memories tend to forget, particularly those people who like to wield pitchforks faster than others. (Although I'm not particularly sure about the 'December' part of this sentence, other than peculiar non-conference RPI scheduling decisions that were well chronicled in this digital space)
But their screams were consistent .. as in consistently changing. "Fire Beilein he can't recruit!" which slowly morphed to "Fire Beilein he won't recruit (five star players)" then it was "Fire Beilein he only runs his system" to "Fire Beilein we can't get over the hump" to "Fire Beilein we'll never compete with the bluebloods" obviously... like with the "Fire Harbaugh" crowd, their volume turned up and down with every appearance in the Final Four. But for some "fans", it definitely felt like if Beilein wasn't doing exactly what Coach K or Calipari was doing, then this program just wasn't achieving its rightful potential. Then he was gone. And I'm sure some of those same "fans" are the ones who now say he "bailed on the program."
April 22nd, 2024 at 11:02 AM ^
several seasons the team wasn't playing great ball in the first two months of the season and the "fire Beilein" banter would happen.... then in January the team would be starting to gel and would continue to improve through the Big 10 schedule, playing their peak ball in the B1G Tourny... at least that's about how I remember it.
April 22nd, 2024 at 11:14 AM ^
This is revisionist history.
Beilein had a rough stretch in there (mostly due to major injuries to Walton and LeVert). They missed the tournament at 16-16 finishing 9th in the conference in 2014-2015. I think most people let that slide.
The next year they had a down February and backed into the tournament at 8th in the conference. Barely survived against Tulsa and lost to ND in the first round. That was a let down. So there were some people being vocal then.
But this was absolutely not an every December thing.
it wasn't a one off thing, that's for sure. There were several seasons Michigan basketball didn't play well in Nov, Dec and early Jan.... during all of those, there were plenty of people calling for Coach B to be let go.
but then again, there are only about 5 people here who will admit to calling for Harbaugh to be fired prior to 2021, the rest must be hiding behind 'revisionist history'.
April 21st, 2024 at 11:27 PM ^
Also apparently the Board of Regents and Santa had to pressure Warde into getting rid of Juwan even in the days leading up to the end of the season. At least we got a guy in Dusty that is willing to make changes immediately.
April 22nd, 2024 at 11:34 AM ^
This is just made up info. There was no "the Board and Santa had to pressure Warde" nonsense. That's not how it works at UM.
Wasn’t Louisville set to hire him?
Correct.
"Any of us could've made this hire." Is it possible to have hubris and ignorance at the same time?
April 22nd, 2024 at 10:30 AM ^
Yes. And it is a toxic combination.
A no brainer? There were a lot of fans advocating for different coaches and May wasn't #1 in their wishlist here.
Michigan stole him from Louisville which is hard to do because Louisville is a blue blood program and Manuel should be given a lot of credit in acting swiftly to get May into the fold.
April 22nd, 2024 at 10:29 AM ^
Look, I'm generally a Warde skeptic but c'mon man, this is just sour grapes.
April 22nd, 2024 at 11:27 AM ^
No, it's just lazy shitposting.
There are valid reasons why Warde should've been fired years ago, but he did fine with the May hire.
What this did do is predictably bring out the Warde-hater-haters out en force (see above), because even trolling of this lowly caliber is an irresistible honeypot to them.
Expect more of the same, because apparently it's still very effective.
I'm more inclined to think that after last season (22-23) that, in the wake of missing the tourney the first time and watching May lead FAU to the Final Four that he thought to himself "Wow, maybe that extension we gave Juwan wasn't the best idea. That Dusty guy looks like a great coach. Oh well, too late." Then, come September, when Howard reveals his health issues and surgery, Warde realizes his opportunity. Knowing he won't be able to fire Howard if he spends the season recovering (like maybe he should have), Warde's like "Sure, Juwan, come on back whenever you feel ready. Being a full-time college basketball coach is not as demanding as people really think. I'm sure the team will respond great to having multiple head coaches and I'm sure you can fully recover while running practices, travelling, hitting the transfer portal, fundraising for NIL. No problem." Meanwhile, Warde's monitoring FAU and doing his research on May, just waiting for the inevitable failure of his own team. Sure enough, his plan comes to fruition and Howard basically agrees that he should be replaced. Bang! Warde steals May from Louisville. Plausible?
Definitely a win for Warde. He made the hire quickly and got the right guy, at least from what we've seen so far. Now he only needs a few dozen more of these to be net positive!
April 21st, 2024 at 11:24 PM ^
What a guy. I feel compelled to attend some Michigan basketball games
April 21st, 2024 at 11:28 PM ^
I know there’s inevitably going to be negative comments on this thread about Dusty going to visit frats, but anyone who has complained about how bad the Maize Rage has been recently (and they would be correct), should be very excited about this. Getting the support and attendance of greek life at basketball games will do wonders for attendance and the energy at basketball games and it’s great that Dusty understands this
"... there’s inevitably going to be negative comments on this thread about Dusty going to visit frats ..."
Genuinely curious (and maybe naive): Why would you expect that?
If I were Dusty, the Maize Rage would (of course) be my first stop. After that, if I'm targeting students? Frats, of course. Their members are probably more likely to be sports fans than the average student and also more likely to be "joiners," so your investment may yield large flocks.
Genuinely curious (and maybe naive): Why would you expect that?
Because fraternities and greek life are divisive topics generally speaking
Hey, leave the Greeks out of this. They are a proud culture dating back to the classical Hellenic period of Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great. Did you know famed actor Telly Savales was Greek? Clearly not. And if you're reading this Gloria V., you proud Greek woman, I still love yah, baby.
And let's not forget Stavros from Kojak! He was Telly's younger brother!
Fair enough, but here? I can't recall seeing many negative opinions of Greek life expressed on MGoBlog. Now, bring up firearm safety and Eddie will come out of the woodwork. :)
May's Rage?
April 22nd, 2024 at 10:28 AM ^
Agree. If fraternities said "Hey we have 20 tickets to every basketball game and I need 20 guys to be there. So rally your peeps and show up. We will take attendance." then it will happen.
April 22nd, 2024 at 10:46 AM ^
Beilein did this as well. He used to show up to intrafraternity council meetings and give away about 100 free tickets for a couple games a year when we were struggling
April 21st, 2024 at 11:33 PM ^
Weird he is getting undergrad transfer’s too because the excuse for Howard was “BuT wE caNt gEt TraNsfErs”
It’s almost like May confirmed if kids are okay with potentially losing credits before assuming they are going to be a part of the roster.
April 22nd, 2024 at 12:14 AM ^
I think he's only gotten 1 undergrad transfer, FWIW. There are others on the target board though.
He's only gotten one and as far as we know it hasn't 100% gone thru. We've gotten this far with multiple Juwan transfers before admissions or whoever stepped in and ruined things.
The difference is that the transfers that have committed this year are in the categories that we normally admit (underclassmen and graduates). If Juwan had just stuck to guys in those categories, he probably wouldn't have had any problems.
April 22nd, 2024 at 11:53 AM ^
we normally admit (underclassmen and graduates)
Danny Wolf is a junior. WTF are you talking about? Since when are Juniors underclassmen?
April 22nd, 2024 at 12:17 PM ^
Wolf is currently a sophomore at Yale.
April 22nd, 2024 at 12:31 AM ^
Again, not a matter of kids being "okay with potentially losing credits." If not enough credits transfer, they won't be on time to graduate and will therefore be academically ineligible for athletics.
The larger point of the coach understanding the academic requirements stands, but the specific argument that it's just up to the whims of the students does not.
The issue isn’t with all undergrad transfers. Freshmen and sophomores’ credits generally transfer without too much issue. The problem is mostly with upperclassmen. Credits in upper-level courses often don’t get accepted here. If they’re able to graduate, then we can take them as grad students.
The problem with Shannon and Love is that they were in that category of non-graduating upperclassmen. We were counting on them taking courses in the summer, for which their old schools didn’t have to pay (since they were in the portal). Meanwhile, other schools offered them admission on the spot. We shouldn’t have counted on them coming.
And at that there is also a maximum amount of credits that they will allow to transfer in as well. Some of the schools have transfer credit caps and others require the upper level core classes be taken at U of M
April 22nd, 2024 at 12:11 AM ^
*Dusty May works
?
April 22nd, 2024 at 12:56 AM ^
I get Ted Lasso vibes from him.
He seems to have an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.
I saw "Dusty may work" and.immediately thought "Dinah Moe Humm." The phrases have the same number of letters and a similar sound, I guess, but I gather I'm not right in the head.
I saw the title and my immediate thought was “Dusty will work!”….then I realized there was a missing capital letter in the title
looks young enough to live in one of those frat houses. Same energy
Kissing babies sounds political.
The Right will call him Biden’s pedo partner. The Left will an anti-choice woman hater.
Howard’s remaining loyalists will remind you Howard brought them Washtenaw donuts day 1 on campus.
Basketball fans will clamor for recruits over content.
Bereft of content, this thread will spiral into hot takes for so long on whether Warde is an Idaho potato that a hole the size of a potato will unravel in Warde’s undersized sweater, exposing a puffer jacket.
It will never fail to amaze me at what things people can needlessly bring politics into
April 22nd, 2024 at 10:13 AM ^
Dear lord! Just couldn't help yourself, could ya?