June Madness: National Champion Head Coach Jumping to NBA
A potentially sleepy June week for sports news started off with a bombshell report regarding an NBA team hiring the hottest coach in NCAA basketball.
Shocking move shakes sports world
ESPN insiders broke the news Monday morning the Dallas Mavericks are hiring Dusty May to be their new head coach.
BREAKING: University of Michigan coach Dusty May has agreed to become the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, sources tell me, @AdamSchefter, @PeteThamel. Major college-to-pro jump for the 2026 NCAA championship coach and swing for the Mavericks and Masai Ujiri. pic.twitter.com/rwlwhRtNfo
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 22, 2026
May most recently was seen leading Michigan to its first NCAA men's basketball national championship in more than 30 years.
The Wolverines, built almost entirely of transfers, stormed through the NCAA Tournament then took down UConn 69-63 in the championship game.
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Finishing 37-3, they won playing a European-influenced, free-flowing offensive style built upon multi-skilled players at all five positions, and they overwhelmed many teams with their length on defense thanks to a frontline of 6-9 forwards Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. and 7-3 center Aday Mara.
May will join a Mavericks organization that figures to be built around Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists last season en route to being named NBA Rookie of the Year.
The Mavs were 26-56 last season and finished 12th in the Western Conference under head coach Jason Kidd, who was also a legendary player for the franchise.
Who is Dusty May?
At 49 years old, May has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the basketball world.
You could also say he is an overnight sensation that took nearly two decades.
The Terre Haute, Ind., native got his start as a student manager for legendary Indiana Hoosiers head coach Bob Knight in the late 1990s then spent nearly two decades as an assistant at multiple schools before getting his first head coaching job at Florida Atlantic in 2018.
He gained national prominence by leading the Owls to the Final Four in 2023 then jumped to Michigan ahead of the 2024-25 season.
May's first Michigan team went 27-10, finishing second in the Big Ten and advancing to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament
That set the stage for last season's dominant run, but his decision to leave Ann Arbor after just two seasons shocked many in the basketball sphere.
There are going to be some really angry Michigan folks who swore he'd never leave https://t.co/JllcBr2GXo
— Greg Smith (@GregSmithRivals) June 22, 2026
WOW.
— Kevin Sweeney (@CBB_Central) June 22, 2026
Dusty May leaving college basketball for the NBA at some point felt like an inevitability.
It happening this soon was not.
A massive shakeup in college basketball and a huge win for the Mavericks to land one of the best coaches in the sport. https://t.co/KGuPYMZnrC
That was one of those tweets where you had to double and triple check you didn't get NBA Centel'd before sharing.
— Connor Lemons (@lemons_connor) June 22, 2026
Do NBA teams frequently hire college coaches?
The most recent high-profile college coach to go leave college basketball for the NBA was John Beilein in 2019. He was also head coach at Michigan and led the Wolverines to multiple Final Fours before taking on the role of head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, an experiment that lasted less than a season.
Other examples of coaches to make their names as college coaches before giving it a go in the NBA include Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Billy Donovan, Quin Snyder, P.J. Carlesimo, Larry Brown and Brad Stephens.
Of that group, Brown, Donovan and Stephens (who eventually moved to the front office for the Celtics) had the most success.
In another bit of irony, Michigan also knows something about losing a coach to the next level shortly after a national title in another sport.
Football coach Jim Harbaugh left his alma mater to become head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers two years go after his Wolverines won the College Football Playoff in January 2024.
In that case, there is a distinct difference, however, as Harbaugh was both a former NFL head coach already and facing punishment for multiple NCAA rules violations.
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 22, 2026, where it first appeared in the Sports section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 12:04 PM.