LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Monday morning, before the insane time crunch of coaching a men's NCAA Final Four team started to squeeze Dusty May of Florida Atlantic, he pulled out his phone and tapped this message to Dr. Larry Rink, the Indiana University men’s basketball team physician the last 43 seasons:
"Wouldn’t be here without you encouraging me to go to work at IU! Appreciate you!"
That, Dr. Rink said, was textbook Dusty May.
Game-planning for San Diego State would have to wait. The most unknown of the Final Four coaches wanted it known he had not forgotten people who assisted him on his dazzling journey from undersized point guard at Eastern Greene High in south central Indiana to a guy sitting two victories from becoming the most improbable basketball national championship coach ever.
"It made me feel really great because I knew it was sincere," Dr. Rink said. "I'll be rooting for him. I imagine everybody in this area will be rooting for Dusty."
That is correct.
Other than fans of San Diego State, Connecticut and Miami, who won’t be rooting for Dusty May and the FAU Owls when the Final Four begins Saturday evening in Houston?
In a Final Four lacking brand names, FAU brings the least name recognition but the most magical pull of Cinderella. The Owls play in an arena that is smaller (2,500 capacity) than dozens of Indiana high school gyms — and FAU was not filling half of it when May arrived in 2018. FAU had endured seven consecutive losing seasons.
Even after Conference USA downsized when it lost Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis and others, FAU was no better than the seventh- or-eighth best job in the nation’s 10th-best league. You could scribble everything about FAU basketball tradition inside a matchbook cover and have room to write a phone number.
San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher is the son of former Minnesota head coach Jim Dutcher. Danny Hurley of UConn and Jim Larranaga of Miami both played Division I basketball.
What was Dusty May's advantage -- other than his work ethic?
And now …
… now FAU will play on the last weekend of the season in a Final Four that dozens of legit heavyweights will miss.
"I can’t say I knew Dusty would coach a team in the Final Four because I didn’t," said Mark Barnhizer, who coached May as his point guard at Eastern Greene High School in Bloomfield, Indiana.
"But I knew Dusty would be successful in whatever he did because of his passion. I actually thought he would be a great high school coach. He just took a different path."
Barnhizer, for the record, is a former Indiana high school all-star who played college basketball at Purdue and Auburn. He’s the head coach at Lafayette (Ind.) Jefferson High School. Barnhizer has coached across Indiana and learned which guys have the It Factor. Barnhizer said May showed his alpha qualities in eighth grade.
Eastern Greene had a talented, successful girls’ varsity team. Barnhizer said the girls’ squad was good — and knew they were good.
The girls were always looking for a challenge. So, they asked their coach if they could scrimmage the Eastern eighth grade boys, which featured a precocious point guard named Dusty May. The younger boys heard the chatter than the girls were certain they would win.
Barnhizer, the varsity coach, arrived after the scrimmage began. He looked at the scoreboard and blinked:
Eastern Eighth Grade Boys 46
Eastern Varsity Girls 4.
"In one stretch, Dusty stole the ball and made a layup on 10 straight possessions," Barnhizer said.
And so it began. May started as the varsity point guard for four seasons for a team that regularly was stopped in the sectional round of the Indiana state tournament by Bedford North Lawrence in the days before class basketball. May was also the best runner on the cross country team, even though he only ran because Barnhizer required it.
“He’d be out there pushing everybody to run longer,” Barnhizer said.
Without extraordinary quickness or height, May’s primary college basketball playing opportunity was at Oakland City University. That is an NAIA program at a school with 2,400 students about 70 miles southwest of Solsberry, Indiana, where May grew up.
May played one season — and played well. But May understood that if he wanted to stay in basketball it would be as a coach, not as a player.
Cutting grass at Dr. Rink’s house was one job May worked in high school. After his first season at Oakland City, he talked to Dr. Rink about his goal of becoming a coach.
The next move was inevitable. Dr. Rink was close with IU coach Bob Knight. The IU basketball fraternity of student managers was an ideal launching pad into the world of coaching. Indiana basketball and Knight were his favorite team and coach. When he was in elementary school, the only nights that his mother would allow him to stay up past 9 p.m. were nights when the Hoosiers were on television.
"I told Bob everything I knew about Dusty and I still remember what Bob said," Rink said. "He said 'That sounds like the kind of kid we need in our program.'"
And so it escalated. May joined a culture of relentless over-achievers. There is Lawrence Frank, president of the Los Angeles Clippers. There is L.J. Wright, who directs the men’s NCAA Tournament. There is Scott Dolson, the IU athletics director.
Don’t forget Joe Pasternack (coach at Cal-Santa Barbara); Mike Schrage (special assistant to Jon Scheyer at Duke) and Chuck Swenson (one of Mike Krzyzewski’s first assistants at Duke who later led the program at William & Mary).
There is Marty Pollio, the superintendent of Jefferson County Schools, who preceded May at IU from 1989-93.
"You learned how to coach and you learned leadership skills," Pollio said. "You start doing laundry, mopping the floor and cleaning the the locker room.
"By the time you’re a senior, you’re working on game prep, cutting video and doing scouting. You're also in charge of the other managers. The structure is set up so you learn how to be a leader."
Dan Block, now a pharmaceutical sales rep, worked with May as an IU manager through 2000, Knight’s final season with the Hoosiers.
"Dusty was always taking on more responsibility," Block said. "He was always very positive and trying to learn. It seemed like he was always watching video and trying to figure something out."
"Dusty is a very bright kid," Dr. Rink said. "He was always the leader of the pack."
There was one other quality that separated Dusty May from the other managers. "Just a fiery competitor," Block said.
Most managers played basketball in high school. During the offseason they were drafted into pickup games with the Indiana scholarship players. Yes, they were pickup games. But there were at least two players who treated them like Game Seven of the NBA Finals.
One was Dane Fife, a starting guard on Indiana's 2002 Final Four team. The other was Dusty May.
"Whenever Dane and Dusty went at it on opposite teams they went so hard that we finally had to make a rule that they were always on the same team," Block said. "We didn’t want anybody to get hurt."
After graduating from IU in 2000, May needed a Rand-McNally road map — and his supportive wife, Anna — to make the 23-year journey from Bloomington to NRG Stadium in Houston Saturday.
Pour yourself something to drink and follow along. May and Block coached AAU teams in Bloomington before May departed for two seasons as an administrative assistant to Henry Bibby at USC. Three seasons in a similar role for Mike Davis at IU. One season as an assistant coach to Charles Ramsey at Eastern Michigan. Another season assisting Billy Kennedy at Murray State.
Back to working for Davis at UAB for two seasons. Then a jump to Louisiana Tech, where Mike White kept May on the staff after Kerry Rupp was fired in 2011.
The connection with White got May to Florida as an assistant coach for the Gators in 2015. And it was critical when White’s brother, Brian, the athletic director, hired May to replace Michael Curry at FAU in 2018.
In the seven seasons before May took over the Owls never won more than 14 games while losing at least 20 games four times.
May has never had a losing season. FAU’s offensive efficiency improved every year. The Owls rank in the top 30 nationally in offensive and defensive efficiency this season. They’ve won 35 of 38 games, defeating Florida in Gainesville on Nov. 14.
All four of FAU’s NCAA Tournament wins have been by 8 points or less as they have taken down Memphis, Fairleigh-Dickinson, Tennessee and Kansas State.
Ken Pomeroy’s analytics site shows the Owls as only a 1-point underdog against San Diego State, although Las Vegas likes the Aztecs by 3 in the semifinal that will precede UConn against Miami.
That’s OK. Dusty May was considerably more than a 3-point underdog to make it from Solsberry, Indiana to any Division I head coaching job.
"Dusty is a honest, hard-working guy," Block said. "Parents trust him. He’s genuine with his players and that’s not always the case at that level."
"I'm just proud," Dr. Rink said. "Everybody at Indiana should be proud of Dusty."
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