The college basketball world is in total shambles on Monday, June 22. After winning the National Championship two months ago, Michigan men’s basketball head coach Dusty May is reportedly leaving Ann Arbor to become the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks.
May has been one of the fastest risers to an NBA job in recent history, going from coaching Florida Atlantic two years ago to winning at Michigan, and now leaving college to jump to the pros.
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There is no denying success follows May wherever he goes, and he has received interest from every program in the country the last few years given what he has done at FAU and Michigan. He pulled off one of the great Cinderella stories in NCAA Tournament history with a 2023 Final Four run at FAU, taking a program that had no high school recruits when he arrived and turned them into a contending program. He then turned Michigan around after it went 8-24 the season prior, making the Sweet 16 in May’s first season and following that up with the program’s first national title since 1989.
Now, May is the first college coach to bolt immediately after cutting down the nets since Kansas’ Larry Brown in 1988. As stunned as we all are, there is a very good reason why May is leaving Michigan. College sports are changing every day, and while Congress can pass all of the legislation it wants to, it is not going to fix anything in the short term. College sports are becoming less recognizable, and for coaches like May that got into the business because of the love they had for the pre-existing structure, there comes a point where you can’t handle more instability.
“I did ask Dusty if he would leave for the NBA, if he could see himself leaving college basketball in the coming years, he did say yes at that point,” CBS Sports College Basketball Insider Matt Norlander said on Monday morning. “Did we think he would get to the point where he would be taking an NBA job in 2026? No. But I did think that if he was going to be able to keep Michigan consistently relevant, a top 10 team, I thought we would be here in this spot next year because I think Michigan under Dusty May would be one of the best teams in the country, obviously, so I am not surprised to see this.
“And these are champagne problems, let me be clear, but it is not easy being a head coach of a power conference program these days. There is just so much that comes with it. Now, some coaches are better equipped and wired to handle it better than others. Dusty May is equipped and wired to handle it, but you are trading one set of problems for another by taking a swing at the NBA, so I am not surprised whatsoever.”
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The current landscape of college athletics consists of 365 days of non-stop recruiting new and current players, throwing money at problems, and short-leashes to get things done. Today, coaches are simultaneously recruiting high schoolers, evaluating the portal, dealing with NIL and retaining their own players who are tempted by offers elsewhere. The portal window is only getting shorter each year, so coaches like May are having to dedicate time to recruit players while actively preparing for the National Championship.
Then you have roster instability. Coaches now plan for at least a quarter of their roster turning over each year at a minimum. Some programs are flipping the majority of their rosters in a single cycle. The very concept of “program building” which consists of installing a culture, developing freshmen into seniors, watching players grow into new roles, has been replaced by something closer to professional general management. Every offseason is a free agency period.
And to make it even more chaotic, the federal government wants to get involved in “fixing” college sports by making rules and regulations that it has no basis for knowing anything about. Just last week, the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act of 2026 passed in the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, championed by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), along with Senators Eric Schmitt and Chris Coons.
It aims to create a national NIL framework that replaces the current patchwork of 50 different state laws, establish transfer and eligibility rules that would limit athletes to one unrestricted transfer during their careers, grant the NCAA an antitrust exemption, create spending caps on what schools can pay players through revenue sharing, address tampering and recruiting rules and specifically prevent football coaches and key staff from leaving mid-season to take over another FBS program.
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While you may agree with part or all of this, it has a long way to go to pass in the Senate and House, and even if it does, it will spark a wave of lawsuits that will take years to sift through the court system. All this to say, college sports is in a turbulent, unpredictable position and there will not be any concrete solutions in the near future.
College basketball is a business. Just like how May has to put on the best pitch to get the best recruit, he is susceptible to a good pitch as well. And while Michigan is one of the best coaching jobs in the country, there are some things that are out of its control.
“I spoke to a source close to Dusty May, it is the college environment that is pushing him to this decision,” Norlander said. “It is not an easy one, it is an extremely difficult one. He met with Dallas on Saturday when they made their final pitch and essentially offered him the job. He took all day Sunday to make that decision, and he decided late last night that yes indeed it would be the case that he is going to take the job. He has not signed a contract at this point, but those things will get ironed out in the coming days. But ultimately, the state of college sports and where things are with a lack of guardrails and true firm infrastructure is a major catalyst.”
Michigan is expected to hire Michigan assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. as the interim head coach, who spent eight years at Oklahoma State (2017-24), with the final seven as the Cowboys’ head coach. It is unclear if he is the final solution or a temporary one, but Warde Manuel and his staff must figure it out quickly before the clock runs out to capitalize on the momentum May gave them.
