Going Nowhere Without the Coach

Reversing Michigan’s Fortunes

As players become more transient in the N.I.L. era, coaches like Dusty May are often the main attraction. 

Candace Buckner - The Athletic

The New York Times - Mercoledì 8 aprile 2026

Pagina 1

INDIANAPOLIS — The golf carts were ready to go outside the locker room of the University of Michigan men’s basketball team early Tuesday morning.

One was for players like forward Yaxel Lendeborg, his shirt soaked as he bear-hugged the school’s newest trophy, and point guard Elliot Cadeau, the Final Four’s most outstanding player. The two players were still wearing ski goggles, the way champions do to survive postgame celebrations.

But the golf carts stayed in park, unable to head toward the victors’ news conference at Lucas Oil Stadium after Michigan’s 69-63 national championship win against UConn, because one of them remained empty.

The game’s biggest star was missing.

“Where’d Coach go?” a Michigan staff member asked the driver in an attempt to locate Dusty May.

If this transient world of college sports has revealed anything, it’s that nothing goes — not those golf carts, and especially not a dominant run through the N.C.A.A. tournament like Michigan’s — without Coach. He’s the central character, someone who can wrest the spotlight away from the fervor of a rival fan base and, even if unwillingly, also the college athletes who are here today and gone . . . later today.

Strange, isn’t it? Even in a college basketball season that turned N.B.A.

general managers into tank drivers just so they could have the right to select one of the lottery picks in the 2026 draft class, the main attractions roamed the sideline in quarter zips. In an era that provides more freedom and finances to a work force filled with 20-somethings, middle-aged coaches are (still) the ones supplying the best material.

During Monday’s N.C.A.A. tournament title game, a completely unappealing experience, it was the temperament of UConn Coach Dan Hurley that gave the viewing audience something to care about. Would he crash out and pull a Geno Auriemma, accusing the entire Michigan sideline of not shaking his hand pregame? No one knew, but it was worth waiting for rather than witnessing both teams abuse the art of the jump shot. (Michigan made 2 of 15 from 3; UConn shot 31 percent overall.

) May does not have that kind of magnetism. The camera does not follow him the way it does Hurley. Nor does May have the presence of Tom Izzo, who made a scene this season by kicking out one of his former players, sitting in the stands, from a Michigan State game. And he does not possess the stateliness of Bill Self, with whom he shares top billing in “Made for March,” a four-part series streaming on Paramount+ that chronicles the 2025-26 men’s basketball seasons at Kansas and Michigan.

May is kind of, well, normal. But he is also the biggest reason Michigan is national champion.

“He’s 49 years old?” Hurley mused about May in the lead-up to Monday’s game. “He looks really young. I thought he was younger than that. Forty-nine, I was surprised at that. I thought he would be more in his early 40s. I thought he might have been like 40 or 41. His hair, and he looks great. But he’s one of the best coaches. He’ll be one of the best coaches for — hopefully, this is the first of many meetings in these big spots between me and Dusty. He’s excellent.” After leading a midmajor, Florida Atlantic, to the 2023 Final Four, May needed just two years to turn Michigan around, a near worst-to-first rally from 8-24 (3-17 in the Big Ten) in 2024 to 37-3 (19-1) this season. This revival should give Cignetti vibes. The face of college football, Curt Cignetti transformed a forgotten Indiana football program via the transfer portal and also led his team to a national title.

But unlike Cignetti, who can combust when he is not looking completely bored, or even May’s mentor, Bob Knight, the best-known coach in all of Indiana sports, he is not a caricature of a madman. May is normal. And he gets attention by being so calm. Just as he did in January, going viral by sitting down, crossing his legs and ignoring/ trolling the student section at Michigan State that greeted him with boos.

He appears as a nice guy, unless of course you get lost in his perfectly coifed hair and ageless skin and forget that May might be the biggest gangsta in the Big Ten.

As he compiled this roster by signing the likes of Cadeau and Lendeborg out of the transfer portal, he also pulled center Aday Mara (formerly of U.C.L.A.) and forward Morez Johnson Jr. (formerly of Illinois) from conference rivals. It’s no wonder conference coaches denied May the title of 2026 Big Ten coach of the year, although he earned the news media’s vote.

“He’s just an amazing person,” Mara said. “It’s amazing to be here around him. I’m super happy that I have him as a coach.

” Mara said the Michigan coaching staff changed his life and made him enjoy basketball again. He added, “Now, I’m just, like, happy.

” Not as happy as the people in Ann Arbor, Mich., especially the ones who see May, er, differently. For the national championship game, there was a cheeky shirt popular among students in the Michigan section: Several women could be seen wearing a “Dusty May Is Your Daddy” T-shirt.

“Umm, I don’t, no comment,” Charlie May said, when asked about his father being the inspiration for such fashion.

Next season, when Michigan is back near the top of the college basketball rankings, even with a heap of new transfers, May will be the biggest reason again. And he will also be the best draw, as it is with Hurley and other young coaches filling the void left by some of the game’s biggest personalities who have since become retirees.

On Tuesday morning, it took a few moments, but Michigan staff members tracked down May for his waiting golf cart. May, with his championship hat turned backward, plopped down in the passenger seat and released a sigh.

Then, and finally then, could Michigan go.