For a long time this season, the narrative around Dusty May was that he might want to hold off leaving FAU until the Indiana job opened, in the hopes it would open in the next two years. May grew up in Indiana, graduating from Eastern Greene High School and attending IU. He was a manager for the Hoosiers under Bob Knight, saying before that he “idolized” the man. Was there much truth to the narrative? It’s unclear. As we’re seeing in baseball media, where many are being forced to reckon with an image of Shohei Ohtani they mostly constructed in his silence, it’s easy to paint something in your preferred image. Did Dusty May really want the Indiana job to open up? We don’t know. It was believable, but that doesn’t mean a thing is true.
Where this gets interesting is that May has now landed at Michigan, a conference rival of Indiana. That rivalry’s a bit of a cold war right now. Neither program has been thriving of late, with internal frustration taking priority for both fanbases ahead of everything but Indiana’s rivalry with Purdue. But if that old rumor is true and May would be interested in Indiana, and if we might reach logical conclusions regarding Mike Woodson’s continued struggle in Bloomington to produce motivated, disciplined performances from his always-talented players, one or two years from now we might be finding out. Whether Dusty May succeeds or fails at Michigan is of less interest at this moment than even the shred of a possibility that Indiana soon makes a run at a conference power’s sitting head coach. (Michigan is not an elite basketball school but it is absolutely the most powerful institution in the Big Ten.)
The immediate reaction to this kind of speculation is always going to be, Yeah, but the buyout! The thing is: Indiana boosters care about basketball. The buyout will likely be exorbitant, and it would certainly give Michigan a head start in this hypothetical bidding war, but if the old narrative is true and Dusty May’s heart longs for the crimson and cream, the scenario is at least on the table. This isn’t to say Michigan shouldn’t have hired May. It’s a credit to them that they pulled it off in an environment in which he’s so justifiably wanted. But until either Mike Woodson figures it out or Indiana makes its first coaching change in May’s Ann Arbor era, the cloud is going to loom over both these programs.
Other coaching carousel news and thoughts:
- Bob Valvano—brother of Jim Valvano, Louisville radio color commentator—was in Terre Haute on Sunday for Indiana State’s NIT game. He then said yesterday, on his radio show, that Josh Schertz told him May turned down Louisville after receiving death threats from Louisville fans. Valvano really walked this back later in the day, but if Schertz does end up taking the Louisville job (and he seems to be the leader right now if he wants it), this is the kind of thing that will be easy to wash over in the short term but will hang around for the long term. If Schertz is doing poorly, Louisville fans will be quick to bring it up. If Schertz is doing well, others will point it out at Louisville fans, implying their coach might skip town. We don’t know what was originally said by Schertz, and we really don’t know whether May said anything to Schertz at all or if Schertz was joking around to Valvano. It is a weird little story, and it’s only that, but I’m guessing it’ll gnaw at the Cards.
- Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello are reporting that Andy Enfield is a major figure in SMU’s coaching search, which is nuts. Firing Rob Lanier to hire Andy Enfield is a really expensive way to make your basketball program worse. Unless the thought is that the SMU ecosystem will support Enfield more than it will support Lanier (call your local sociologist, I’m not touching that one today), this would be wildly dumb. The only hope, if you’re an SMU person, would be that SMU struck out and is retreating to a strong recruiter with mediocre results at USC. Any other explanation implies an administration that is either foolish or more focused on branding than winning. Enfield was great at FGCU. Credit to Enfield for FGCU. USC should have always done better under his leadership.
- Kyle Smith to Stanford makes a lot of sense. He stays on the West Coast, he goes somewhere patient, and he gets an academic fanbase that might be legitimately enthused about his numbers-focused approach. I wouldn’t worry too much about players transferring to Stanford specifically if I were WSU—Stanford, like Northwestern, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc.—makes it hard to transfer in because it’s tight with what it accepts as a college credit—but this is a bad spot for a program entering at least two years in the WCC. With athletic director Pat Chun now leaving for Washington, it’s even worse timing for the Cougars. I don’t know whether to view president Kirk Schulz as a genius for successfully keeping the Pac-12’s assets in WSU and OSU’s hands or whether to view him as an imbecile for not reading the writing on the wall and trying to jump earlier to the Big 12, during those months the Arizona schools and Utah dithered, but this is a really important hire for the future of Washington State basketball. There’s a lot on the line in Pullman.
- Darian DeVries going to West Virginia is interesting, because he’s a Midwestern guy and West Virginia’s not in the Midwest, but I suppose it’s not too far outside of it, even if DeVries is a Plains guy and Morgantown’s Rust Belt. Tucker DeVries is ready to contribute in the Big 12 and will probably become one of the league’s more annoying players (this is a good thing—he’s a good heel if you’re in his league), but he is better when he has a great point guard.
- Mark Byington is a straightforward hire for Vanderbilt. Five-iron onto the fairway. I have no doubt James Madison will adequately backfill the man who brought them to new heights.
- Finally, good hire by Washington to bring in Danny Sprinkle. The man can coach. Utah State is not a program that should have any business succeeding as quickly as it did under Ryan Odom or Sprinkle. Some of this is Utah State, which is really a great basketball school these days, but a lot of it was Odom and Sprinkle. Coaching in the top left quadrant of the country, geographically, is a different beast from coaching everywhere else. That’s one where I think geography might matter.
Can the NFL Make Wednesdays Work?
The NFL is going to play games on Christmas Day again this year, despite the holiday falling on a Wednesday. The obvious implication is that the NFL would like more Wednesday games in the future.
This is a trend that’s accelerating, the NFL picking off more weekdays. The Black Friday game. These Wednesday games. I’m not yet thirty and I remember when the Thursday night games were a new thing outside of Thanksgiving. It took a long time to get from there to here.
We did see more weeknight NFL games during Covid, and I don’t know how successful they were or weren’t. I remember they were a headache for fantasy football, but I don’t know how indicative fantasy football headaches are of NFL success or failure. If this were about baseball, basketball, or hockey, I wouldn’t bring it up. But while fantasy football is by no means the driving factor behind the NFL’s popularity, I do think it runs in parallel to something that is a driving factor:
How easy it is to follow the NFL.
Part of why I personally have never closely followed the regular seasons of the NBA and NHL, even in a job in which I ostensibly cover them (whoops), is that I don’t know when to expect games. Some weeks, the Bulls play four times. Some weeks, they play twice. The drudgery of the lengthy season is only exacerbated by the need to constantly check when games are happening. At least in baseball the default is that the teams play every day.
The NFL, in contrast, has a short and sweet season with a consistent, predictable rhythm. It takes up less calendar space than any of the other Big Four leagues, and with fewer games, it’s easier to follow all of them for your favorite team, or for the league’s contenders. Also helping matters is how easily it fits into the general work/school schedule. Thursday nights mark the beginning of the weekend feeling. Monday nights are often clear from social and religious commitments. Sundays are open, filled in the afternoon and evening with NFL football. It’s a convenient pattern we’ve long assumed has a lot to do with the popularity of the league.
Clearly, the NFL can broaden its rhythm. Thursday night games are the norm now. They weren’t when I was a child. The question, I would guess, is how quickly they try to expand to Wednesdays, and how quickly they try the next step towards everynight football. If they slow play it, then sure, they can probably teach us all to follow the league seven days a week, especially with so few games on the league’s full schedule (there are 78% fewer regular season NFL games than regular season NBA games, and the NHL and MLB each have more regular season action than the NBA). But if they rush this, there’s a chance of it backfiring, and I don’t know how good the NFL is at retreating. Have we ever seen the NFL retreat?
It’s a small risk and a minor vulnerability, and it’s not even happening this year (Christmas Day is different than a Wednesday night in October). But if you’re someone who kind of loathes the NFL’s creep, maybe take some comfort in the concept that they probably can’t expand too fast. They assume America wants Wednesday Night Football. But we might not. Especially if it dilutes Sunday afternoon football that much more.
Etc.
I don’t think I have anything else today. Opening Day on Thursday, which is exciting as a baseball-inclined blogger. It’s a good college basketball offseason in terms of entertainment value, so I’m sure we’ll have a lot more on coach movement over these next few weeks. Good games in the NIT tonight. Cincinnati/Indiana State especially.
