LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — I wrote the other day that the University of Louisville men’s basketball job was a better job than the position at Michigan.
Apparently, Dusty May disagreed.
To be continued. We won’t have an answer to post on the scoreboard about May’s decision for several years.
Play the next play.
There’s not much else to say, other than hiring a coach is a littler trickier than typing out three sentences on Twitter.
There’s no time for a pity party. Louisville tried to recruit one of the top names in the college basketball coaching market and missed.
Louisville athletic director Josh Heird did what he was supposed to do, pursue a guy who went to a Final Four at a program without a practice facility, a dump of a program that was a 1,000-to-1 long shot to make the NCAA Tournament before May got to Florida Atlantic.
Michigan recruited May just as hard.
Advantage, Wolverines.
Why?
I read the stuff that ESPN columnist Adrian Wojnarowski wrote in his tweet late Saturday night when he broke the news from May’s agent, Andy Miller, that May was bound for Ann Arbor instead of Louisville
That May was “swept away” by Michigan’s alumni network and its fierce loyalty to the university and athletics and how that would help transcend the transactional nature of recruiting in the NIL era and blah, blah, blah.
That’s the stuff you put on a recruiting brochure or in an alumni magazine.
I’ll stick with the reason that is generally undefeated in hiring debates like this:
$$$$$$$$$$.
Andy Miller works for Klutch Sports. That’s the LeBron James agency. Nike makes the basketball world go round. LeBron is a Nike guy. Michigan is more than a Nike school. It’s an Air Jordan brand Nike School.
Nike has always been invested in the success of its top basketball brands. Throw in the extra cash that the Big Ten Conference annually sprinkles on its members, at least an extra $30 million a year that is generated by its television network. That can transcend the transactional nature of NIL.
May is also a Big Ten guy, born in Illinois, raised 20 minutes from Bloomington, Indiana. He began his college basketball journey at Indiana University, working as a student manager for Bob Knight for four seasons before returning to work for Mike Davis as a graduate assistant. Big Ten basketball, and all its tradition, means something to May.
Enough about May. The people who know him at IU are convinced he will do terrific things at Michigan. We’ll be watching — and measuring what he does against the record of the guy who eventually takes the Louisville job
But starting with this paragraph we’ll be watching where this search leads U of L athletic director Josh Heird, who reportedly pursued Scott Drew of Baylor before turning to May.
Going 0-for-2 looks frustrating and embarrassing today, but it will become a footnote when Heird finds a guy who can coach, recruit, build and sell his vision for what Louisville basketball can be.
It’s too soon to make a judgment on how this will shake out. Examples abound. In 2017, three new basketball coaches were welcomed in to the Big Ten — Archie Miller at Indiana, Chris Holtmann at Ohio State and Brad Underwood at Illinois.
Miller was considered the prize catch. He was also the first one fired. Ohio State earned thunderous applause when it snagged Holtmann from Butler. He was fired last February.
Underwood has taken Illinois to four straight NCAA Tournaments, topped by the Sweet Sixteen appearance the Illini earned by defeating Duquesne Saturday.
There’s more.
Louisville basketball has multiple national titles. UCLA has 11. Five years ago, when UCLA moved on from Steve Alford, there were reports that the Bruins were turned down by at least three (John Calipari, Rick Barnes, Jay Wright), four (Tony Bennett) or five (Jamie Dixon) coaches before they landed Mick Cronin.
Before Cronin suffered an off-year this season, he directed UCLA to a Final Four and a pair of Sweet Sixteens.
There’s a Mick Cronin out there for Heird and Louisville.
Who is the Mick Cronin?
Everybody knows the names. We’ve been fussing about them for weeks. Shaheen Holloway of Seton Hall. Jamie Dixon of TCU. Eric Musselman of Arkansas. Danny Sprinkle of Utah State. Cronin. Fill in the blank with your guy that I’m overlooking or ignoring or don't like.
Louisville did not get its guy. But it can still get a guy who can prove this is a better basketball job than Michigan.
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