The Ohio State Buckeyes may be looking to pick the Wolverines' bones after Dusty May suddenly left Ann Arbor for a job coaching Cooper Flagg on the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA. May is the first coach to leave college basketball after winning a championship for the NBA since Larry Brown left the Kansas Jayhawks in 1988 to coach the San Antonio Spurs.
Field of 68's Jeff Goodman's sources told him the following on why May left: "The state of college basketball and not knowing what it's going to look like tomorrow, in a month, or in five years," and "The organization and the chance to coach Cooper Flagg."
May, of course, won TTUN its first basketball championship since 1989 during a shockingly dominant run through the March Madness field. Only the UConn Huskies touched the Wolverines during the NCAA Tournament. It doesn't get better than that.
It doesn't get better than seeing it all potentially crumble, though, either, for Buckeye Nation. Well, it could, actually. Ohio State could steal one of the talents who signed up to play for May and could now back out of that. Most likely, it'd be from the frontcourt.
"From their roster, I don't think OSU needs any of the guards. That rules out Elliot Cadeau, Trey McKenney, and L.J. Cason (may redshirt as injury still healing). They have some good players coming in with 7-2 center Moustapha Thiam from Cincinnati, 6-11 forward J.P. Estrella from Tennessee, and 6-10 forward Jalen Reed from LSU. If OSU is concerned that Ethan Ojianwuna is not 100 percent yet, they could make a play for one of those three," Bucknuts' Steve Helwagen wrote.
Ultimately, Helwagen predicted most of TTUN staying put this year, but potentially jumping ship if Mike Boynton Jr., who was hired as the interim for the 2026-27 season and will be reevaluated at the end of it, isn't retained.
TTUN once again can't retain its championship head coach
There are murmurs that there will soon be some ugly stuff revealed about the Wolverines football program that may have also contributed to May leaving so abruptly when he did. If that's the case, controversy will have chased off a second head coach from Ann Arbor in three years after winning a national championship. Winning a championship is now the new sign that TTUN is about to be hiring a new head coach.
How could we forget Jim Harbaugh ducking the sanctions imposed on the team for the Connor Stalions sign-sealing scandal? Not to mention recruiting violations as well. That's not even to get into the ugly specifics of the Sherrone Moore scandal. Whether you win big or are completely mediocre, there's a 100% chance you're leaving the football program up north embroiled in some nonsense.
It's a shame. The Wolverines basketball program looked like it was about to become a lasting power. They should still win plenty of games in 2026-27. Make no mistake about it, though. Losing May is the worst-case scenario for the Maize and Blue, and nothing said by anyone could change that fact.
Add us as a preferred source on Google