Dusty May - FAU HC - Former IU student manager

[ISP 928]

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

Edited March 24, 2023 by ISP

[Certified Sunshine Pumper 9,109]

He could never coach at Indiana. He plays a 6'4 4 man and a 9 guy rotation. 

[Chris007 43,998]

14 minutes ago, ISP said:

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 Teeth 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

He's my 1A right now with Schrews being 1B and Lewis being 2

[Certified Sunshine Pumper 9,109]

1 minute ago, Chris007 said:

He's my 1A right now with Schrews being 1B and Lewis being 2

My want for Shrews would absolutely dwarf the other two, more than likely, down the road. 

[IU - Kaulie 1,891]

14 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

He's my 1A right now with Schrews being 1B and Lewis being 2

That’s kind of where I am although a lot can happen in a few years.  It’s definitely going to be interesting to see what happens with him to see if he is happy where he is or would want to go to another school.  He could be thinking him and his family are happy in paradise and a certain school might just have an opening a few years down the road.

[ISP 928]

14 minutes ago, btownqb said:

He could never coach at Indiana. He plays a 6'4 4 man and a 9 guy rotation. 

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.”

Edited March 24, 2023 by ISP

[Certified Sunshine Pumper 9,109]

1 minute ago, ISP said:

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.”

Brother, if it were up to me... we'd play 12 dudes a night and press for 40 mins. 

I was just making a statement and saying..  we shouldn't key hole "how to be successful" theres many different routes to that path. 

[ISP 928]

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.”

[ISP 928]

Just now, btownqb said:

Brother, if it were up to me... we'd play 12 dudes a night and press for 40 mins. 

I was just making a statement and saying..  we shouldn't key hole "how to be successful" theres many different routes to that path. 

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.. 

[hper50 1,209]

15 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

He's my 1A right now with Schrews being 1B and Lewis being 2

My 3 as well!

[Henryville Hoosier 972]

Hell let’s just hire him as an assistant and tell him he’ll be head coach in 2 yrs. 

[AKHoosier 6,856]

Feels like this thread is about 3 years early, after Woodson 2nd title.

[Stuhoo 80,578]

This is an example of just how little FAU's home turf cares about college basketball:

• FAU is a 25,000 student campus in Palm Beach County, Florida, a densely populated county of 1.4 million people.
• The paper of record for the county is the Palm Beach Post.
• Below is today's on-line front page of the Palm Beach Post.
• Not only is FAU's win not featured, it is the third article down in the on-line sports features, just below the all-county high school wrestling selections and a human interest piece on baseball legend Reggie Jackson.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/

Not an NIL hotbed.

 

[Hovadipo 56,066]

10 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

This is an example of just how little FAU's home turf cares about college basketball:

• FAU is a 25,000 student campus in Palm Beach County, Florida, a densely populated county of 1.4 million people.
• The paper of record for the county is the Palm Beach Post.
• Below is today's on-line front page of the Palm Beach Post.
• Not only is FAU's win not featured, it is the third article down in the on-line sports features, just below the all-county high school wrestling selections and a human interest piece on baseball legend Reggie Jackson.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/

Not an NIL hotbed.

 

Scroll down a few articles in "More Stories" (you aren't kidding, that story is BURIED) and you'll find another Hoosier's mug featured on a story about new Dolphins QB Mike White.

[Stuhoo 80,578]

6 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

Scroll down a few articles in "More Stories" (you aren't kidding, that story is BURIED) and you'll find another Hoosier's mug featured on a story about new Dolphins QB Mike White.

Nice mullet, Dan.

Local news pecking order:

• Boynton Beach Cat Saved from Tree
• High School All-County Wrestling Team Announced
• Publix Announces One-Day Sale on Italian Subs
• Whole World is Watching as FAU Reaches Elite Eight

[Hovadipo 56,066]

Just now, Stuhoo said:

Publix Announces One-Day Sale on Italian Subs

As someone that would have to travel at least 4 hours to get to a Publix, this absolutely is news.

[GoIU8 205]

Are we really at the point of looking towards the next coach? Is Woodson already looking to step away?

[Hovadipo 56,066]

2 minutes ago, GoIU8 said:

Are we really at the point of looking towards the next coach? Is Woodson already looking to step away?

No. This is a very premature thread. Thus, we have moved on to talking about Pub Subs.

[Stuhoo 80,578]

9 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

As someone that would have to travel at least 4 hours to get to a Publix, this absolutely is news.

 

6 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

No. This is a very premature thread. Thus, we have moved on to talking about Pub Subs.

A window into where my excellent/awful posting ideas originate:

Just destroyed that sucka. T'was outstanding.

Burp.

[Chris007 43,998]

47 minutes ago, GoIU8 said:

Are we really at the point of looking towards the next coach? Is Woodson already looking to step away?

He turns 65 today. Has 4 years left on his contract. Don't think he's thrilled about traveling to AAU tourneys. Loves golf, wine, and naps. All things retired people like and myself .