Dusty May's philosophy in his own words: Recruiting, offensive emphasis, the process

The Michigan Wolverines have a new men’s basketball head coach in Dusty May, who comes to Ann Arbor after six seasons at the helm of Florida Atlantic. May slowly built FAU from a basketball afterthought to a Final Four team last season and another NCAA Tournament berth this year.

The build at Michigan might be a little quicker than finding success in year five, but a lot of the same philosophies may carry over from what May did at FAU. The Wolverines are going to need to augment the roster via the transfer portal this offseason, but the bones of the roster under May will likely be on the recruiting trail.

“When you recruit in January when you’re in the heat of the conference battle, you’re recruiting toughness and intelligence and consistency and skill level,” May said last spring on a podcast from Basketball Immersion. “And then as soon as the season is over, we go out in April and we’re recruiting vertical leap, arm length, hand size, upside potential, all of those things.”

“We’re going to make a conscious effort to go on the road and recruit like it’s January 15 or February 3 just to remind us of what makes us happy as coaches during the year. And it’s guys eager to learn, it’s guys that love to work, that enjoy the game, but also the relationship piece and fit us.”

“For us, we love the high school players because the time, the growth, the development, we feel like our continuity is probably our biggest strength this year outside of our talent. We went to The Portal a few times, but it’s been plug and play where we think that you’re going to have a real impact on our program.”

The interview from the above podcast revealed a few things about how May runs his program and what he might bring to Ann Arbor.

Offensive philosophy

May emphasize getting his team quality shots. This year, they finished 12th in the nation in offensive shot quality and 6th in defense shot quality, according to Synergy. FAU’s offensive efficiency was 263rd in his first year there and improved each season, rising to 22nd last year and 17th this year entering the NCAA Tournament. He wants to space the floor and have constant movement in his offensive system.

“We felt like we got a lot of movement,” May said. “We had a lot of cutting, but we also had off ball screening. And it’s all just created and borrowed and researched based on what each one of our players do really well. That was a starting point. Let’s take what our best players do well offensively and then let’s work down our roster. But let’s begin with that in mind. What do our best players do? How can we put them in position?”

“At every moment the ball needs help or it needs space, and the guys off the ball need to decide, and that’s part of the decision making. So, our guys have gotten really good at playing off of each other and staying away from the ball and cutting as opposed to gravitating towards the ball.”

Playing under pressure

A lot of people have cited Florida Atlantic’s postseason success as flash in the pan, especially since most of the team returned this season and underwhelmed after top-10 preseason hype and a first-round NCAA Tournament exit.

Last year, May and his staff helped take FAU to the next level by preparing them for basketball games with higher stakes than they had experienced before.

Every night out at Michigan may be like that at a school like Michigan in a loaded, and expanding, Big Ten Conference.

“With a few games left in the season, we started addressing how much pressure was on every game,” May said. “We said, ‘If our guys can’t handle the pressure now, we’re probably not going to be able to handle it in the conference tournament, NCAA tournament.’ And so, we started talking about the magnitude of every game. With about maybe three or four weeks left in the regular season, we had talked about the day-by-day, minute-by-minute, frame-by-frame process.

“We’re going to be in every single game. There’s not going to be pressure because we have so many talented scorers. We’re going to find a way to score enough points. And the nights the threes are going in, we’re going to win by a wide margin and the nights they’re not we’re going to grind it out and still find a way.”

The process

Michigan had a coaching change to make due in large part to a lack of attention to detail and adjustments made on the floor. May said in the interview that he is process-oriented and that they will flip over every stone to be successful.

“We feel something that we do really well: we never put them in compromising positions, we never reward the outcome. It’s the process that leads to it. And then that process word is overused. But we’re not outcome-based. We could lose by 30 and when the players walk in the next morning, it’s about getting better and learning from what happened and why we lost. Or, if we win by 20, let’s learn why we won by 20.”

“We’re never afraid to fail. We’re never afraid of the expectations as long as we’re trying. We’re working like crazy every day to get better and we’re being intentional and we’re thinking ahead. We feel like we’re going to find a way to figure it out and get it done. And if not, then we keep searching.”