What they're saying: New Michigan coach Dusty May is a 'basketball junkie' and 'one of the brightest rising coaches'

Michigan Wolverines basketball hired Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May as its 18th head coach, replacing Juwan Howard after five seasons. May chose the Wolverines over reported offers from Vanderbilt and Louisville, and interest from others.

Here’s a look around the media at what they’re saying about athletic director Warde Manuel‘s hire of the new coach.

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Jeff Goodman, Terrence Oglesby and Rob Dauster, Field of 68: Dusty May is headed to Michigan! Plus, what does Louisville do now?!?

Goodman: I think [agent] Andy Miller played everybody against each other. Dusty May’s agent who he signed with, who’s not really a college agent, did a great job, I guess, because Louisville thought they were going to get him, Vanderbilt thought they were going to get him and all of the sudden … listen, Michigan was always in play here, and if you talk to people close to Dusty, this is the place that he felt he fit the best and can win at the highest level.

Louisville, obviously, had the highest upside, [but] it’s in the ACC. Michigan is in the Big Ten. Ann Arbor is probably somewhere he feels like he fits a little bit better, at Michigan. He got some guarantees that he’ll be able to get kids in easier transfer-wise, which was something that obviously plagued Juwan Howard.

[Former Michigan head coach] John Beilein showed you can be in the equation to winning national titles at Michigan. The brand is huge.

Ogelsby: I’m going to be honest, guys. I would say this would qualify as a good year, but I think it was a little bit of a letdown for FAU and Dusty May, if I’m going to be quite frank. Last year was sensational. And let’s be honest — Scott Drew‘s not leaving Baylor, you look at some of these other coaches around college basketball, who really was the name? Dusty May was the name. So, this is a good hire for the current cycle that we’re in for Michigan.

I’m curious to see how it goes, because I think a lot of people think this is a foregone conclusion that Michigan’s going to be in Final Fours sooner rather than later. Truth be told, his six years as head coach, his first year at FAU, 17-16 … 2020, 17-15 … 2021, 13-10 … 19-15 [in 2022]. And then he had the 35-win year and the Final Four run [in 2023], and then 25 wins this year in what I would consider a little bit of a letdown year.

Dusty May, every time I’ve talked to Dusty, he’s been a great guy. I just do think with how stagnant the coaching cycle has been with some of the hottest names in the game, he was the best one for what Michigan really wanted. I think there’s some hope on Dusty’s part that, at Michigan, he can retain players for more than a year.

Dauster: I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how it all plays out here, because we’ve seen these hot coaching names, these guys that make runs in March, they don’t always end up being superstars. Sometimes, we have an Archie Miller [Dayton to Indiana], sometimes we have Shaka [Smart] needing his bounce-back opportunity to kind of get to where he is now [at Marquette]. Andy Enfield had his miracle run for Florida Gulf Coast, goes to USC and does a good job — but it’s not like USC is competing for Final Fours. So, those situations are always fascinating to me.

Matt Norlander and Kyle Boone, CBS Sports: Michigan hires Dusty May: FAU coach replaces Juwan Howard after leading Owls to Final Four in 2023

Given May’s profile as one of the brightest rising coaches in the sport, he became the top target for a number of schools. Michigan swooped in to snag May amid what was a heated race of schools hoping to land him, with Louisville and Vanderbilt also potential destinations. Vanderbilt was seriously considered, per a source, but Louisville was ultimately the biggest rival with Michigan. Why did U-M win out? Sources told CBS Sports that May was enticed because it wasn’t as pressurized of an environment as Louisville. Its place in the Big Ten — and the conference’s financial strength as it embarks on a billion-dollar media rights deal in an 18-team landscape starting later this year — was also a factor.

While it was presumed for days by many in college basketball that May would opt in at Louisville, the reality is that May was uncertain of his choice as late as early Saturday afternoon. According to a source, May waited until Saturday evening to make his decision, ultimately saying yes to Michigan after he received enough affirmation that his values in coaching, program-building and NIL resources were all in line with Michigan’s new strategies in the post-Howard era.

Bob Wojnowski, The Detroit News: Wojo: Michigan and Warde Manuel move swiftly, sharply, to get their man, Dusty May

After the painful task of dismissing Howard, Manuel moved quickly to a task that could’ve been equally tough. UM contacted its search advisers, identified several candidates, and went to work. Questions about how high the school would aim were answered. May signed a five-year contract worth an average of $3.75 million, compared to Howard’s original $2.2 million salary, and he’ll be introduced Tuesday at a news conference in Ann Arbor.

“I’m feeling great,” Manuel told The Detroit News on Sunday. “I think this speaks volumes to Michigan’s commitment to basketball. …. We did a deep dive talking to others about him, and he quickly moved to the top of the list. Everybody talks about his ability to coach, his ability to relate to players. His demeanor on the sideline, the way he communicates with his players and his coaches, all of that was a big sell to me. It added up, and he was the perfect coach for us at this time.”

The roster is decimated, with leading scorers Dug McDaniel, Tarris Reed [Jr.] and others testing the portal, although that can change. Three of FAU’s top players — [guards] Johnell Davis, Alijah Martin and 7-footer Vlad Goldin — could become graduate transfers and provide an immediate boost. A short-term replenishment of the roster would be beneficial, but that wasn’t UM’s primary objective. Moving swiftly was the goal.

Shawn Windsor, The Detroit Free Press: Dusty May is a grinder and a seeker, and that’s a promising combo for Michigan basketball

Howard had built a reputation in the NBA as a promising up-and-comer. He’d learned under the best coaching staff in the league, led by the Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra. 

But he’d never been a head coach anywhere, nor a coach in college, nor anywhere near the day-to-day workings of a college program, outside of his playing days nearly a quarter-century earlier. Talent matters, obviously, and Howard had his moments in attracting some to Ann Arbor (including two future NBA first-round picks, only one of whom was related to him). 

Roster-building and talent acquisition aren’t the same, however, and May has shown he can fashion a roster despite bronze-level resources — FAU’s facilities brought out tears, and not the good kind, after he took the job sight unseen, he told reporters last year. 

From his remote outpost in Boca Raton, Florida, May scoured the country — and Europe — looking for players. Mostly, he wanted guys that could shoot, read defenses, move the ball and absorb scouting reports in practice.

His 2023 Final Four run came on a tsunami of 3-pointers and spacing; his arrival there a year ago must have made all the nights he nerded out, devouring sets from various Euro leagues, worth it. (He told a reporter from The Athletic a couple of years ago that he has been known to watch Spanish league games because he found similarities with the American college game.) 

Like so many coaches, May is a basketball junkie; when he worked as a student-manager under Bob Knight at Indiana, he filled stacks of notecards during practice (according to The Athletic) — sometimes incurring the wrath of the old man himself, who couldn’t stomach a manager who wasn’t paying attention to loose balls. 

Andrew Kahn, MLive: Dusty May’s first priority at Michigan: Assembling a roster

Michigan’s roster for next season is either depleted or decimated, depending on the decisions of a few Wolverines. Since Juwan Howard was fired on March 15, four potential returners — including two starters — entered the transfer portal and a 2024 recruit decommitted.

Michigan currently has nine open scholarships, but that number could grow to the full 13. May has experience with this sort of thing. After getting the Florida Atlantic job in 2018, May retained just three players. As a result, he signed a 10-player class comprised of four high school players, three junior college transfers, two undergraduate transfers, and a graduate transfer.

He can’t follow the same blueprint at Michigan, where juco players are not candidates and even undergrad transfers from prominent academic schools can be problematic. There are high school prospects available, though, including three ranked in the top 50 and 14 ranked between 100 and 200.

Brendan Quinn and CJ Moore, The Athletic: Michigan hiring Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May as next head coach on 5-year deal

May won in a place where no one has ever won before. FAU had never had three consecutive winning seasons in league play before May got there, and only twice had it had back-to-back winning league records. May produced winning records in FAU’s final three years in Conference USA and extended the streak to four with a 14-4 record in the school’s first season in the AAC. May is all about relationships. His players look at him like a father figure.

May’s teams spread the floor, shoot a lot of 3s and know how to play in space. When he got to FAU, his plan was to recruit internationally for a skilled big man who could stretch the floor because all the best bigs in the C-USA were athletic rim protectors. In his first year, he had every center shooting 100 extra 3s after every practice. He proved he could adapt when FAU landed a more traditional, back-to-the-basket big in Vladislav Goldin.

“He’s a high-major talent,” May told The Athletic this year. “You can get a high-level talent, you figure out how to use him.”

Defensively, May’s teams try to keep assist rates low and make teams score in isolation or the mid-range. His teams play to the numbers and their strengths.

Matt Norlander, CBS Sports: College basketball coaching changes tracker 2024: Dusty May picks Michigan, forcing Louisville to pivot

Howard would have been able to hold on to the job if Michigan had been 13-19 instead of 8-24. If it was 7-13 in the Big Ten instead of 3-17. In comes May, and it’s a major shift. The Wolverines bring in a guy with a squeaky-clean image who built FAU into a viable mid-major; the Owls were irrelevant and almost always under .500 on an annual basis prior to his arrival. May is making a jump, but this is no sure thing; he was the hottest name on the carousel this season. Michigan finished last in the Big Ten and will have a major roster flip. It’s ahead of the race in the portal because it beat a lot of other power-conference programs to fill the job.

Josh Yourish, Big Red Louie: Where does Louisville go now after missing on Dusty May? And was he even a big prize?

May is rightfully one of the top candidates for the available major-program jobs, but if things go wrong for him at Michigan, the college basketball world will ask if one good postseason should have been enough to justify the hire.

The big problem is that, while May isn’t a slam dunk hire, he was still the best option on the board and he chose Michigan over Louisville. So again I’ll ask, where does Louisville go from here? 

Louisville isn’t quite a blue blood, but for years it was the tier just below. But now with the ACC falling behind the newly loaded Big Ten and SEC, and nearly a decade between the program and its last national relevance that wasn’t tied to a scandal, the job may not be quite as desirable as expected. It’ll be a total overhaul for whoever ends up taking it, so the administration needs to choose somebody who isn’t afraid of a rebuild, and it needs to be patient with his construction.