On March 23rd, Michigan hired Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May and kicked off a new era of the basketball program. May has rebuilt the roster and re-tooled the program with an impressive coaching staff, but his first game on November 4th is still weeks away. We know the basics about May’s resume, the highlights of his FAU team’s success, and what he’s said in press conferences, but there’s still much more to uncover.
We’ve spent the summer digging into May’s game film, press conferences, interviews, clinic videos and more to understand his basketball vision and how that applies in Ann Arbor. Over the next two months, we’ll look closer at May, his philosophy, and his track record in a series of bite-sized breakdowns that feature everything from on-court tendencies to sideline demeanor to analytics, schematics, and culture building.
Welcome to Dusty 101, where we start today with a broad look at May’s offensive philosophy.
It’s easy to get bogged down with specifics when analyzing college basketball. It’s a simple game that becomes infinitely more complex the deeper you go. Over time, we will dive into some of those complexities, but getting lost in the details is easy without understanding the big-picture philosophy.
That philosophy makes coaches unique and tells us their story. It’s their job to leverage the nitty-gritty details to accomplish that goal, but setting the right goal directs the program.
I’ve attempted to extract some very high-level concepts and ideas from Dusty May’s offensive scheme to paint that picture. What drives his offensive philosophy? How does he teach it? And how does it all come together in reality?
“It’s actually painfully simple,” Kyle Church said of the Florida Atlantic offense when filling in for Dusty May at a clinic last year. “Everything we do basically has two objectives: create space or put two on the ball. That’s everything: every play, every action, every movement that we talk about.
“How do we create space for our best players? How do we put two on the ball? ”