Dusty May reacts to lack of upsets in March Madness: ‘I don’t think Cinderella is dead’

As the Sweet Sixteen got ready to tip off Thursday night, only one double-digit seed remained in the field. No. 10 Arkansas was the lowest seed to advance to the second weekend of March Madness, and no mid-major programs remained through the first two rounds.

With NIL and the transfer portal creating more parity in college basketball, some wondered if the idea of “Cinderella” teams would start to fade away. However, Michigan coach Dusty May – who led a Cinderella story of his own – doesn’t see it that way.

May, of course, rose to national prominence when he led Florida Atlantic to the Final Four in 2023. He spent one more year in Boca Raton with players who chose to return, then headed to Michigan this year. While he admitted Cinderella stories might not happen as often, he still thinks underdog stories will be around come March.

“I don’t think Cinderella is dead,” May said Thursday. “I think she’s probably not going to be making visits as frequently as she did before.

“You know, I look at it like this. We lost a few players at FAU early on. One left before we thought he was an All-League player. We’re obviously disappointed. Everyone was upset. My response was always, hey, we get paid to coach basketball, to do the best we can. If they decide to leave, then we’ve got to support them. Now, what we have to do a better job of is making sure we keep these guys long enough to be All-Conference. Then, if they leave, then that’s part of it. But we can’t lose them before they’re going to be All-Conference level players.”

Dusty May: Cinderella runs are ‘just going to look different’

With so much player movement – more than 1,200 players entered the transfer portal as of Wednesday – Dusty May said the idea of a Cinderella story might be a team that suddenly arrives on the big stage. He pointed out injury issues Florida Atlantic had the year before its Final Four run, which he said likely impacted whether those players wanted to enter the portal.

But as he looked at the state of basketball as a whole, even beyond Division I, May sees the potential for more Cinderella runs in the future. Considering Division II coaches such as Ben McCollum and Josh Schertz have found success at the D-I level, he thinks those stories aren’t gone for good.

“I think it’s just a group that kind of emerges out of nowhere,” May said. “Even in our case, we had the year before, we were really good. But we had injuries. We lost games we shouldn’t have lost. So that kept our guys probably from being recruited as aggressively because we just weren’t on the same stage. So a lot went into that, a lot of layers to it.

‘But I don’t think Cinderella is dead, especially when we see how good of basketball is being played at the Division II level. Especially when you look at, Josh Schertz is a close friend. Ben McCollum is a good friend. Jim Crutchfield down at Nova. Those guys move up, and they’re good basketball players. So I think it’s just going to look different.”

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