College basketball’s defending national champions just lost their superstar head coach.
Dusty May, whose meteoric rise in the profession crescendoed in April by leading Michigan to the national championship, is headed to the Dallas Mavericks to be that organization’s next head coach. It’s a move that sent shock waves through college basketball Monday morning, both because of losing one of the sport’s top young minds and because of the potential for a late-June coaching search at an elite program like Michigan.
The Wolverines find themselves in an incredibly tricky situation now. It has been hard enough for schools to poach sitting head coaches from top-tier situations in recent years, let alone this late in the cycle when most teams have already begun summer practice. And the carousel has largely already been tapped of its up-and-coming talent by other jobs this cycle. Plus, Michigan has to contend with keeping its roster together, a group that includes Final Four Most Outstanding Player Elliot Cadeau and a number of top transfers. Those players will have 15 days to enter the transfer portal starting five days after Michigan hires a successor to May, should those players elect to make a move.
Who could Michigan look to as a replacement? Here’s a look at six potential candidates Sports Illustrated expects to hear in connection with the job.
Mike Boynton, Michigan associate head coach
This is the continuity play, and perhaps the safe choice for at least a year before hitting the market in the spring. Boynton has seven years of experience as a power-conference head coach after being the man in charge at Oklahoma State from 2017 to ’24. He coached Cade Cunningham and took the Cowboys to the NCAA tournament that season, but otherwise had a middling track record albeit with poor resources relative to the rest of the league. He has earned rave reviews for his work as Michigan’s defensive coordinator and seemed likely to get a good head coaching gig again soon. But Michigan would be a huge leap, without a doubt. And Michigan’s experience promoting Sherrone Moore to replace Jim Harbaugh after winning the national championship in football went poorly, although Boynton is more qualified than Moore was.
Josh Schertz, Saint Louis head coach
Schertz was the belle of the ball in this year’s spring coaching carousel cycle, but elected to stay put at Saint Louis with a massive jump in resources rather than take more mid-level power conference gigs. Michigan is different. If Schertz was going to leave SLU, he wanted to go somewhere he felt confident he could win a national championship. Ann Arbor certainly qualifies. He’s also extremely close friends with May, which might make the transition a bit smoother. If there’s an outside candidate, he’s likely the top realistic choice.
Billy Donovan, former Chicago Bulls head coach
Donovan parted with the Bulls this spring and was expected to be in the mix for several NBA vacancies this cycle, but as of now is still without a job. Coaxing him back to a college lifestyle won’t be easy, but Michigan is the caliber of program that could entice him to consider it. He’s also unencumbered by leaving his current job late in the job cycle, which is a plus in Michigan’s situation.
Nate Oats, Alabama head coach
There are a lot of reasons why this marriage wouldn’t work, starting with Oats’s $15 million buyout to leave Alabama before April 2027. That’s an enormous figure that makes Oats hard to move, even if he was pining for the Michigan job, which is no guarantee given the setup he has at Alabama. That said, if he wanted to move, it’d be worth Manuel exploring whether he can find the money. Oats spent the early part of his coaching career as a high school coach in the state and has proven himself to be one of the best coaches in college basketball.
Mark Byington, Vanderbilt head coach
Byington has crushed it thus far at Vanderbilt, taking the Commodores to consecutive NCAA tournaments to begin his tenure and winning the most games in a season this past year that the program has seen since 1993. His trajectory is similar to May’s, residing in obscurity for a handful of years rebuilding programs seen as mediocre jobs before exploding lately. Since Vanderbilt is a private school, exact buyout figures aren’t known, but sources have indicated it wouldn’t be cheap to move him. He’s also well positioned to win this coming season with star guard Tyler Tanner coming back to the Commodores.
Ben McCollum, Iowa head coach
McCollum taking Iowa to the Elite Eight in his first season on the job only added to the hype about one of the best young coaches in the sport. He has won at every level, including multiple national championships at Division II Northwest Missouri State. He’s also considered a tactical genius, someone who could win big with Michigan’s resources. And his buyout, relative to other sitting power-conference coaches Michigan could target, is more manageable at $5 million. It will be extremely hard to get McCollum to leave his home state of Iowa, but he has been speculated about for Kansas when Bill Self retires and could be at least worth a call here.
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