Dusty May has taken his name out of the coaching rumor mill just as Michigan prepares for the biggest game of its season.
Sources told ESPN on Sunday that May informed Michigan officials he is not pursuing any other college basketball jobs, ending speculation that had connected him to the opening at North Carolina and reinforcing that the Wolverines’ coach is staying in Ann Arbor. The timing matters for obvious reasons. Michigan is heading into Monday night’s national championship game against UConn, and the last thing the program needed was its coach being treated like an active free agent in the middle of a title run.
May had been considered an early target in North Carolina’s search after the Tar Heels fired Hubert Davis last month. But the possibility never gained real traction as Michigan kept winning and advanced all the way to the national title game. May had already signaled publicly this week that he was not interested in feeding speculation during the tournament. “After last year, I decided that I’ll never, ever respond to any job speculation,” May said Friday. “I think it’s well-documented how happy I am at Michigan. Obviously, my private life, my personal life, my family, their happiness is very important.”
That quote now reads less like a dodge and more like the direct answer it probably was all along.
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Michigan has every reason to want this settled. May agreed to a new contract with the school last year before leading the Wolverines to the Sweet 16, and this season the program has gone from strong to flat-out dangerous. Michigan is 36-3 after Saturday night’s rout of Arizona, won the Big Ten regular-season title, and has piled up 29 double-digit victories. This is not some feel-good surprise run that accidentally wandered into April. Michigan has been one of the best teams in the country all season, and May has become one of the hottest names in the sport because of it.
His deal with Michigan runs through 2030 and includes a $7 million buyout if he were to leave for another job this spring, which also made the idea of a quick exit more complicated than the usual coaching-carousel fantasy talk. Still, with North Carolina sitting there as one of the biggest jobs in the sport, his name was always going to come up whether Michigan liked it or not. Sunday’s update appears to shut that down.
The situation also narrows North Carolina’s search. Hubert Davis was dismissed after five seasons after the Tar Heels blew a 19-point lead to VCU in the first round of the NCAA tournament, marking the second straight year North Carolina failed to get out of the opening round. Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, widely viewed as a top target, agreed Friday to a new five-year deal to remain in Tucson. With Lloyd staying put and May now telling Michigan he is not pursuing other jobs, Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan is expected to be among North Carolina’s top targets.
For Michigan, though, the bigger story is the one right in front of it.
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The Wolverines now head into the championship game against UConn without their coach’s future hanging over every pregame conversation. That is not a small thing in modern college basketball, where a coach can win two games in March and suddenly half the sport starts acting like his moving boxes are already packed. Michigan does not have to deal with that distraction now, at least not publicly. The message from May to the school was simple: he is not chasing something else while the Wolverines are chasing a title.
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