“Gut Punched!” – Michigan Alum Rich Reacts to Dusty May Ditching Wolverines for the Mavericks

Rich came back from vacation to a gut-punch. While he was off the grid with Susan and the kids, fully unplugged, Dusty May left the University of Michigan to coach the Dallas Mavericks. Rich found out the way the rest of us did, with no heads-up and no inkling at all.

"I could not have been more gut-punched and disappointed," Rich said. And this was not a distant relationship. He had seen May just last month, when he hosted a coaches forum for Michigan in Southern California during the Big Ten meetings. May was there with the rest of the staff. He did not seem unhappy, did not seem edgy, did not seem anything. At the time, Jason Kidd was still the coach in Dallas.

Then the news landed, and Rich did the math that May clearly did. He could not bring himself to blame the guy.

Picture the two jobs side by side. At Michigan, May was operating in a world where you re-recruit your entire roster every year, dive back into the transfer portal every offseason, and chase NIL dollars just to stay competitive. He had just hung a banner. Four years ago he was running the same gauntlet at Florida Atlantic.

Then the Mavericks knock. They offer collectively bargained rules, real contracts, real free-agency structure, and an actual offseason where a coach can hang out with his family. They offer a new front office, Kyrie Irving on the way back, and the chance to keep coaching Cooper Flagg.

"Who the hell wants to coach college anymore?" Rich asked. The names back that up. The reported sequence is that Jon Scheyer turned down the Mavericks first to stay at Duke, and Dallas circled back to May. If you are the Mavericks, you want Cooper Flagg's coach. If you are May, you take the off-ramp.

Rich does not know exactly what Michigan did to keep him, or whether it was even possible. He has heard the rumors about May grinding gears with the athletic director. But the headline, repeated twice, is that he cannot blame him. Nor does he want to.

What he will remember is the rivalry moment. Rich asked the crew to put the photo back up, the one of May parked on Tom Izzo's bench in front of a wall of Michigan State students, refusing to flinch. New to the rivalry, confident anyway, certain he had the better team. That image stuck with Rich as much as the net-cutting did.

Now coach Boynton inherits the bench, and Rich would love to see him stand in that same fire.

May did leave Rich a parting gift. He mailed over a piece of the net and some confetti from the run, sealed up in little baggies. Rich held them up and admitted the presentation needed work. "It looks like a Lunchable more than anything else."

A dynasty he hoped to watch get started instead got one banner and a goodbye. Rich said he wants to ask Brian Windhorst about the whole thing in the next hour, whether Michigan ever came close to the Mavericks' offer.

"Thanks for the banner, Dusty," Rich said. Too brief. He wishes he could have stayed.