{"id":86662,"date":"2025-03-27T16:35:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/dusty-may-reacts-to-lack-of-upsets-in-march-madness-i-dont-think-cinderella-is-dead\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T16:35:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:35:39","slug":"dusty-may-reacts-to-lack-of-upsets-in-march-madness-i-dont-think-cinderella-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/dusty-may-reacts-to-lack-of-upsets-in-march-madness-i-dont-think-cinderella-is-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Dusty May reacts to lack of upsets in March Madness: \u2018I don\u2019t think Cinderella is dead\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

With NIL<\/a><\/strong> and the transfer portal<\/a><\/strong> creating more parity in college basketball, some wondered if the idea of \u201cCinderella\u201d teams would start to fade away. However, Michigan<\/a><\/strong> coach Dusty May<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 who led a Cinderella story of his own \u2013 doesn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n

May, of course, rose to national prominence when he led Florida Atlantic<\/a><\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Cinderella is dead,\u201d May said Thursday<\/a>. \u201cI think she\u2019s probably not going to be making visits as frequently as she did before.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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\u2019re 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\u2019ve 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\u2019s part of it. But we can\u2019t lose them before they\u2019re going to be All-Conference level players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dusty May: Cinderella runs are \u2018just going to look different\u2019<\/h2>\n

With so much player movement \u2013 more than 1,200 players entered the transfer portal as of Wednesday<\/a> \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> and Josh Schertz<\/strong> have found success at the D-I level, he thinks those stories aren\u2019t gone for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just a group that kind of emerges out of nowhere,\u201d May said. \u201cEven in our case, we had the year before, we were really good. But we had injuries. We lost games we shouldn\u2019t have lost. So that kept our guys probably from being recruited as aggressively because we just weren\u2019t on the same stage. So a lot went into that, a lot of layers to it.<\/p>\n

\u2018But I don\u2019t 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<\/strong> down at Nova<\/a><\/strong>. Those guys move up, and they\u2019re good basketball players. So I think it\u2019s just going to look different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Dusty May reacts to lack of upsets in March Madness: \u2018I don\u2019t think Cinderella is dead\u2019<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Sweet Sixteen got ready to tip off Thursday night, only one double-digit seed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}