The basketball world has always had a special place in its heart for coaches who appear to have pulled themselves up from the muck—the Phil Jacksons, Nick Nurses and Gregg Popoviches who put in years of service at small colleges and bush-league arenas before ascending to the top of their profession by intelligence and luck.
Into this lineage has stepped Dusty May, a former Indiana video coach who built an impossible winner at Florida Atlantic before taking home the national championship at Michigan in 2026. May, however, showed his hand in a way not all of his forebears could—exhibiting a self-awareness on the way up about the price of greatness in the modern college game.
