ISP

Seems like this dude has accomplished enough at this point to deserve his own watch thread. Former IU student manager and video coordinator under Bob Knight. Was on Mike Davis' staff at UAB. Under Mike White at La Tech and Florida. Only 46. Already has led FAU to 2 of its top 3 or 4 seasons in program history. Woody turns 65 today and when hired was considered more of a short-term option rather than long-term. Definitely will be keeping an eye on him. Has some ingenuity to him. https://twitter.com/CoachDanCasey/status/1639111765584666624?s=20

Really good podcast by Hoosier Hysterics with Dusty May. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dusty-may/id1609450696?i=1000609460530

And his older brother plays for the Pacers and attended a few IU games this year.

Only follows 200 ppl on IG and most of them are influencer chicks. Adding X and Trey to follow def seems intriguing.

Keep an eye on Kal'el Ware

This account originally said he would be shocked if Caleb Love picked IU. Now today he has changed his tune quite a bit. Seems that Missouri is the clear leader though.

Certainly not in first. edit: at this point

nothing to write home about. seems like it will be a bit of a process with multiple suitors still involved.

Rabby says he is working on an article from the Love zoom right now, should be updated shortly. I don't expect anything enlightening in it. Might be a boring next couple days.

Baumgart isn't well sourced. Your best info is going to come from Pegram or certain names on message boards.

That’s 1st team all freshman big ten to you mr iu_fan club

I can tell you with confidence that IU is Essegian’s dream school. If Woody offered him a scholarship he would transfer. Obviously it would all have to be done through back channels, but the door is open on one side. Trust me on this one. This could be revisited next off season as well.

I was honestly surprised that of all the Monday morning interview requests he likely received, DD is one he felt he needed to do. But hey, it got me to tune into DD for the first time in years, so smooth move on DD's part.

Just watched Coach May on Dan Dakich, here's a few notes. -Dude is an extremely likable guy, very charismatic and upbeat. No doubt a players coach. -Clearly is very fond of his time at IU and the state of Indiana in general. -He will forever be a student of the game. Always is reading and watching and learning something new about the game. -Tells the players "if you do what we tell you to do then the wins are yours and the losses are ours (coaches)". Says he got that from one of Dean Smith's books. -After the interview was over, Dakich says that "Woodson will probably be out of there in a year or two and they should hire him (Dusty)... I'd hire him right now".

As the creator of this thread, I want to point out that it wasn’t created to cheer for Woody to retire asap. Rather just to follow May’s success and, God willing, if that success continues perhaps it can someday continue at IU.

Oh I know, it was just funny that you joked about that just as I was reading that segment about how he runs his offense..

Quotes above and below taken from this article: https://theathletic.com/4284970/2023/03/09/dusty-may-florida-atlantic-college-basketball-ncaa/ (read it for free on iPhone using Safari.. hit the Aa bottom and then "reader" -- It’d be the middle of the summer, at 4 o’clock in the morning, and White would ask May what the heck he was watching. “He’d just throw out some random Euro tournament of some random year with two random teams,” White says. “It’s fun for him just to study random basketball at all levels. He’s addicted to it. He is a basketball encyclopedia.” May, the fifth-year coach at Florida Atlantic (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/florida-atlantic-owls-college-basketball/), was born into hoops. He grew up in a housing division that was once a cow pasture about 20 minutes from Bloomington, Ind. His parents divorced early. His father bought a house with coal under the property, which led to him and his brother inheriting some money. His mom put a majority of it in their college funds and said the rest could be used to pave their basketball court. The first summer camp he ever attended was Bob Knight’s at Indiana. The only nights he stayed up past bedtime were Mondays or Tuesdays when the Hoosiers (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/indiana-hoosiers-college-basketball/) were on prime-time TV. “It was life or death,” May says. “I’m not Catholic, but I can imagine the way we love Coach Knight is how the Catholics love the Pope.” After spending a year playing basketball and running cross country at Oakland City University, May transferred to Indiana in 1996 and became a manager for the Hoosiers for the next four seasons. He knew he wanted to be a high school coach, and he’d take notes during practice and film sessions. He was so locked in on his note taking one day that when a loose ball rolled to his feet and Knight asked him to get it, he didn’t hear him. “Dusty,” Knight screamed, “if I see another notecard out, you’re fired.” “The way he to ok notes, the way he passed balls, the way he approached everything, he was just relentless,” former Indiana coach Mike Davis says. “He was not going to leave any stone unturned.” --- May’s first exposure to coaching came under Knight. He cherishes that experience, but it serves as a reminder that he also needs to be himself. The first team May coached was the under-16 Bloomington Red grassroots squad while he was an Indiana student. He tried, he says, to be a “mini Coach Knight.” “I was nuts,” he says. “I was a yeller, a screamer, emotional.” It didn’t fit him. He realized that summer he wasn’t having fun, and neither were his players. He idolized Knight, but he couldn’t be him. A few years later he discovered former Butler (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/butler-bulldogs-college-basketball/) coach Brad Stevens. May being May, he found a way to go watch some of Butler’s practices. Anytime he was in the area he’d pop in. “It was so foreign from what we saw and how we acted growing up, where you can go to watch him in practice and he’s not talking all the time,” May says. “And now that I’ve studied teachers and educators, sometimes you just take a step back and observe.” This style of coaching fit May’s personality. Stevens took back-to-back teams to the Final Four in 2010 and 2011. America embraced those Butler teams because they played so hard and so smart, and the coach was so likable. If there’s a replica in this year’s NCAA Tournament of those Butler teams, it’s FAU. McCasland, who has pulled off a big upset before (North Texas (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/north-texas-mean-green-college-basketball/) beat fourth-seeded Purdue (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/purdue-boilermakers-college-basketball/) in 2021), sees a team that’s not going to be overwhelmed by anyone athletically and doesn’t believe there’s a team out there that will have “an advantage somewhere that’s significant.” And May, like Stevens, is just as likable. “I think that’s what makes him so good is he’s in this business for the right reasons, man,” says Murray State (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/murray-state-racers-college-basketball/) coach Steve Prohm, who was an assistant on the Racers staff with May for one season. “He just loves coaching ball. He’s like an old-school ball coach, to where if he was a high school coach here at Murray High, he’d be going with the same energy that he is at Florida Atlantic. He just loves basketball, and he loves coaching and teaching.” “He’s never been one to talk about what they’re doing,” McCasland says. “He’s been the one to ask how to do things better. He’s always searching to try to improve.” This is what White loves about May. The two met when White got the job at Louisiana Tech in 2011. May had been on staff for two seasons already and offered to help with the transition. It was White’s intention to bring in entirely new assistants. But as they sat down to talk, one hour turned into two, and two to three … and White realized he might want to keep May around. White took May with him when he got the job at Florida and still talks to him daily. He says May has never had a bad day. His c apacity to work is unmatched. In a profession where everyone has a high energy level, “his is off the charts.” In the day, at night … “At commercial airports, long bus rides, you never see him without a Mac in front of him, studying film or reading a book about basketball or coaching or leadership,” White says. “He’s relentless in his pursuit of greatness.”

May loves bigs who can be decision-makers, which has drawn him to recruiting international players. Goldin, originally from Russia, barely played in one season at Texas Tech (https://theathletic.com/college-basketball/team/texas-tech-red-raiders-college-basketball/), but May fell in love after watching his FIBA and high school film. “We thought we were getting an absolute steal,” he says. The Owls are small — Rosado, at 6-7, is the only other rotation player taller than 6-4 — but all of those guards are a nightmare to deal with offensively. Defenses can never just key in on one or two guys. There are always four guards on the floor who can dribble, pass and shoot, and they’re quick. Anyone can be a screener too. The Owls run a lot of ball-screen action and are creative in how they get to those. It’s not just the point guard and a big man. Sometimes it’s set up by a dribble hand-off. Sometimes the point guard will be one of the screeners after he makes the first pass. Sometimes it’s a “chase,” a concept those old Phoenix Suns teams often utilized where the point guard throws it to the big and then gets it back. Away from the ball, there’s always a lot of movement. “It kind goes back to what we learned through teaching,” May says. “Your eyes take in information, your eyes then give that information to your brain and your brain decides what to do with it. So if you’re going to run a ball screen, we never felt like we had great spot-up shooters, where you could just space and make the decisions easy. So we felt like we had pretty good shooters who were also pretty good drivers and they were pretty good cutters. And so we wanted the defender’s eyes and balance not to be focused on the ball screen.” The growth for FAU’s players has been what happens when the initial action doesn’t generate a good shot. “Our whole offensive philosophy is if you see space, then attack space,” May says. “And if you don’t see space, then we have to create space. So if a guy drives into bad spacing, we stop and say, what do you see? I just drove into terrible space. If I drive, and there’s another defender’s chest, it’s an automatic pass to the open guy and then play.” This is how good shot selection happens. The Owls, who rank 19th nationally in effective FG percentage, look like a group that’s been together multiple years and know how to play off each other. Their defensive success is a similar formula. May has always been a big believer in staying out of defensive rotations as much as possible, so his teams switch almost every screen. He learned it from Davis and got to test it out for himself when White let him coach the defense during White’s four-year run at Louisiana Tech. The Owls also try to keep Goldin near the basket for rim protection, so they play him in drop coverage. This makes it so they rarely ever have to use a help defender to tag the roller. “When you’re small, we just feel like if we get off balance or we’re over-helping or if we’re over-tagging, then now you have bigger, stronger, more physical guys with angles to rebound, angles to cut,” May says. “We’ve got to keep bodies in front of bodies, and that way when the shot goes up, you’re balanced.” His theory works. The Owls rank 330th in average height, per KenPom, but they’re 25th in defensive rebounding rate. The Owls also limit 3s and have the 14th-best two-point defense in college basketball. “Their schemes are really tight,” McCasland says. “Their understanding of what they’re trying to do is really good, but to me it’s the effort that they put forward and their activity level that makes them different. Because a lot of people can be in the right spot, but those dudes make plays in the right spots. For 40 minutes, they’re relentless on both ends. It’s really a special combination.”

Good call. I blindly assumed he won again.

Dude won Ohio Mr Basketball 2x while averaging 14ppg and 15ppg. That should tell you the type of command this kids has on the court.

It is also comparing a 6th year Sr to a true freshman. To make it apples to apples... Kopp's freshman season he averaged 5pts on 32% from 3 and 70% from FT where Essegian is at 12pts on 39% from 3 and 89% form FT.

Duke - I was at the game, a good # of Hoosier fans were there. My first time at Cameron. Right out of the gate we were outclassed and outcoached. It was never a question. Basically had to watch 40 minutes of basketball being down 20+ points. Our hero Romeo looked lost out there. At least I got to see Zion in person I guess. I was so pissed, I decided to drive home that night instead of stay in Raleigh as planned. Long drive home with little hope.

You are correct and yes I would love that.