Dusty May, fresh off a national title at Michigan, is finalizing a deal to become the next head coach of the Dallas Mavericks.
Historically, college coaches jumping to the NBA have rarely worked out, but this one feels different. That's because of who May is, how he coaches and, perhaps most notably, the way in which college basketball now operates essentially like a professional league.
It's also why his performance could have a major impact on college hoops.
May, 49, has certainly distinguished himself as one of the game's brightest coaches. The onetime Bob Knight manager at Indiana took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four in 2023 and led Michigan to a dominating national championship run in 2026. He has won nearly 70% of his games across eight seasons.
May's teams are known for their innovative offensive sets; he is known for his communication skills. Hand him a young Mavericks roster centered on 19-year-old Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg, and a pair of first-round picks in Tuesday's draft (Nos. 9 and 30), and you can see the potential.
This is a good hire. And that's despite knowing the lengthy list of successful college basketball coaches who didn't get anywhere in the NBA -- from John Calipari and Lon Kruger, to Leonard Hamilton and Tim Floyd, to Mike Montgomery and so on. Even Rick Pitino didn't last.
The NBA's success at mining the college ranks for coaching talent was so limited outside of Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan that the league basically gave up trying. NBA owners and general managers stopped believing March Madness success mattered.
The last hire of this kind came in 2019, when Cleveland recruited another Michigan coach, John Beilein. A distinguished teacher of the game at the collegiate level, Beilein lasted just 54 games with the Cavs. Since then, the league has looked within, preferring young assistants -- Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault to Boston's Joe Mazzulla, for example.
If anything, the flow had reversed, with North Carolina hiring NBA championship-winning coach Mike Malone this spring.
May has no pro experience but has grinded his way up from video coordinator with a slew of mid-major stops as both an assistant and head coach. He played numerous different styles based on whatever his personnel allowed for that season, or even that game. Until he got to Michigan, he never benefited from any kind of recruiting power to stock his roster with superstars.
The NBA was always a focus of his. Even if it doesn't work, virtually every school in the country will fight to get him back.
For too long, NBA teams hired college coaches whose success was built, at least partially, on their ability to recruit. The better the players, the better the coach. Always.
Before name, image and likeness allowed for above-the-table money to influence decisions -- and before the transfer portal made on-the-fly roster construction possible -- successful coaches were often buttressed by tradition, fan enthusiasm, shoe companies and geography. They built teams year in, year out that gave them an overwhelming advantage in most games.
They were also able to motivate and teach with an extreme power dynamic -- players had fewer options.
It's not that the college guys who bombed out couldn't coach; they certainly could, and most had more success following their return to the NCAA. It's just the structure of the two levels was so different.
Same sport, different game.
Now? Well, it's a lot closer. If anything, the NBA actually offers far more roster stability. As such, May will be a test case for a new generation of college coaches who aren't succeeding necessarily due, in part, to the favor they have with a certain shoe company or a couple AAU coaches.
Alabama's Nate Oats, Arizona's Tommy Lloyd, UConn's Dan Hurley (who turned the Los Angeles Lakers down in 2024) and Duke's Jon Scheyer, among others, will no doubt be watching (and be watched).
For May, this is a basketball junkie getting a crack at the NBA. For the Mavericks, it's a flier on a coach who distinguished himself in every way, including building a roster.
For college basketball, this was an inevitable part of the blurring of the lines between its game and the pros -- and a potential trend that could upend things everywhere.