FAU coach Dusty May's journey began with Bob Knight
Florida Atlantic head coach Dusty May watches during the second half of an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 game against Tennessee at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. Credit: AP/Adam Hunger
It’s only fitting that a guy who is helping pen one of the great stories of this NCAA Tournament has a great backstory himself.
Florida Atlantic has made an improbable run to the Elite Eight under coach Dusty May. And the ninth-seeded Owls (34-3) will be facing No. 3 Kansas State (26-9) in Saturday’s 6:09 p.m. East Regional championship game at Madison Square Garden for a spot in the Final Four. FAU is in only its second Big Dance and, should it win, will be one of eight lowest-seeded teams to make a Final Four.
“We dreamed to be here,” Alijah Martin said. “And just to make this run, it's amazing.”
May’s run to this lofty place began when he was a student manager at Indiana under Bob Knight. He would work as a video coordinator with two college programs after college and hold assistant coaching positions at five different schools, the last at Florida, before he was hired at FAU in 2018.
When working for Knight, he learned a philosophy that has guided him ever since: “Serving without wanting anything in return except knowledge and experience,” he said.
“All I ever wanted to do was be a high school basketball coach in Indiana,” said May, who is from Greene County, Indiana, just west of Bloomington. “This all kind of just happened, very up and down . . . Every step I've enjoyed. Grateful to be here and grateful to be a part of this game.”
FAU is in the midst of its greatest season and Thursday night’s 62-55 takedown of No. 4 seed and 20th-ranked Tennessee is its most recent accomplishment.
Nick Boyd, who played high school ball at Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, N.J.) and is the team’s only local player, stood on the press table after the victory exhorting the section of Owls fans. “It’s a great feeling,” he said.
But May, 46, knows this feeling. He was an assistant to coach Mike White when Florida played in the 2017 NCAA East Regional at the Garden. Chris Chiozza finished a spectacular 84-83 overtime win over Wisconsin in the semifinal.
“When you win here, there is nothing like it,” May said. “I wish we’d won two nights later against South Carolina. But [Thursday’s win] felt the same sort of way. Now we get a chance at the special feeling one more time.”
FAU is built very differently from Kansas State. The Wildcats’ roster is littered with players who arrived from the transfer portal and they feature stars such as Florida transfer Keyontae Johnson and Harlem product Markquis Nowell, who set an NCAA Tournament record with 19 assists and scored 20 points in Thursday night’s 98-93 OT win over Michigan State. The Owls have a few players who transferred from four-year schools, but most were recruited out of high school.
None of that matters now.
“When you step between [those] lines, all that extra stuff just kind of goes out the window and it just comes down to competing and who has the biggest heart,” Bryan Greenlee said. “I feel like we've proven that we just want it more than a lot of teams.”
“Now, 30 or however many wins we have? We never envisioned this,” May said. “But knew we had a special group.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
