Folks, it's been a day. Twitter is down, fans are arguing, and Dusty May is still defending his team's actions in the latest Michigan vs. Michigan State athletics scuffle.
He's already become a true Michigan Man.
I was scrolling through Twitter (before it went down for the third time) and saw a quote posted from May regarding Sunday's incident over the midcourt logo and I was a little shocked to see what he had to say after reflecting on it for 24 hours.
On Sunday, he spoke to the media and said that he didn't know about the tradition and didn't think his players intentionally stood there. I thought it was just an emotional response and he'd actually look at the replays to see that his guys intentionally stood in the way even after being asked to move. But he doubled down on that ignorance on Monday.
Here's the quote that I saw:
"I don't watch Michigan State documentaries...Dusty May during his Monday presser
... (The Spartan logo) is "about a third of the court."
There's a video clip of the presser quote linked above but obviously with Twitter being down, I couldn't include it in here. But he's basically saying that he had no idea about the tradition (even though he went to Indiana and was told about it by the refs) and that he didn't think there was an issue with where his guys were standing because they "just gave up a layup" to Coen Carr right before that after a missed free throw.
Mind you, there was less than a minute left in the game and MSU was up by 17. No one was trying to get out and run so standing all the way back during a ceremonious tradition like that was unnecessary, especially with end-of-bench guys coming in and the game decided.
May wanted to act all buddy-buddy with Tom Izzo on the floor, putting his arm around him and apologizing before shaking hands after the game and apologizing once again before turning around and cowardly saying all of this stuff.
This is how Michigan operates. This is nothing new.
May has already been briefed on how to act like a true Michigan Man and he knows his fanbase will drool over him if he plays stupid and defends his guys who he knows were in the wrong. This type of behavior isn't just condoned in Ann Arbor, it's taught. It will probably never change but at this point, there's no use in trying to hope that it does.
Also, for Michigan fans who said they didn't know about the tradition, they've seen it for 30 years now and it has taken place in games against them twice over the past six years. They know how this works.
But they're committed to playing the victim and Dusty is now one of them.