Three…… Two…… One.
The buzzer sounds, and, for the first time since 1989, the Michigan Wolverines are national champions. Michigan head coach Dusty May has just completed one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of the sport.
Just two years ago, the Wolverines team he inherited finished 8-24 (3-17), the worst record in the Big Ten. Now, they are on top of the world.
The basketball atmosphere in Ann Arbor has been flipped on its head in the last two years. All because of the work of one man, and Wolverines fans can’t wait to see what’s up next.
But then May shocked the college basketball world. He accepted the position to become the new head coach of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, becoming the first college coach to leave for the NBA since John Beilien in 2019, who also was the Michigan head coach at the time.
But what does this move mean for both sides?
For Michigan, it’s a move that changes the entire landscape of college basketball. The period where players could enter the transfer portal ended two months ago, but since a coaching change occurred, all the Wolverines players are now “free agents”.
Every Michigan student-athlete can now choose to either enter the portal or stay with the team. But since summer workouts have already begun, if a large number of players choose to leave, it will be very difficult for Michigan to formulate a competitive team, much less a championship contender for the upcoming season.
A season that includes a non-conference matchup against Marquette at the Crisler Center during the 2026-27 season, a matchup that now looks more favorable for the Golden Eagles.
The future of the Wolverines basketball program will be in the hands of interim head coach Mike Boynton Jr., who has experience as a head coach from when he was at Oklahoma State for seven seasons (2017-24), where he led the Cowboys to an NCAA tournament.
In the coming weeks we will find out if the Michigan student athletes chose the school for the basketball program or for what Dusty May had done to improve it.
For the Mavericks, things look a little different.
College coaches that have made the move to the NBA have not been very successful in their time at the professional level. There are some outliers such as former Butler Bulldogs head coach Brad Stevens who was very successful in his time with the Boston Celtics.
However, the Celtics had the most success when Stevens became the President of Basketball Operations in 2021. In his time at the position, the Celtics have reached two NBA finals, winning in 2024.
But even extremely accomplished college coaches such as Rick Pitino (St. John’s) and John Calipari (Arkansas) struggled in their short time in the NBA before eventually returning to college basketball.
With May making the move just a day before the NBA Draft where the Mavericks hold the ninth overall pick, it made for a chaotic adjustment for the Mavericks front office. But May had a player in mind that he was already fairly familiar with.
The player they chose with the ninth pick was none other than Michigan forward Morez Johnson Jr.
Now May has a recognizable face on a roster that already includes last season’s Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg.
This won’t be the first time May will take over a team that struggled the previous season. But the NBA is very different than college basketball, even though the NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) era has made the two more similar. The vast increase in games and different playstyles still makes the two quite different.
Even though the Mavericks finished 26-56, they are just two years removed from an NBA finals appearance. Then just a year later decided to move on from their franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic in one of the most shocking moves in NBA history that sent the superstar to Los Angeles.
Will May be able to turn both a college program and an NBA franchise around in a five-year span, or will it be another failed coaching experiment in the NBA? We will just have to wait and see.
This article was written by Lukas Schulze. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @LukasSchulzeMU.