The biggest storyline over the past few weeks outside of the NCAA Tournament being whittled down to just two teams has been the head coaching vacancy at North Carolina — a program that Michigan State has beaten two years in a row after that NCAA Tournament loss in 2024.
North Carolina had lost Caleb Wilson earlier in ACC play and he was going to miss the rest of the year, so the Tar Heels’ title chances weren’t great to begin with, but Hubert Davis’ team got off to a nice start against VCU, even taking an 18-point lead in the second half before blowing it and losing in overtime.
That was the end of Davis and one of the most desirable jobs in the nation opened back up.
There were rumors that Michigan State’s biggest rival could be losing their head coach after the national title game, but Dusty May shot down the rumors and said he wasn’t pursuing any college jobs. The key words there are “college jobs”.
While Dusty shot down the North Carolina rumors, he didn’t mention anything about an NBA job. The rumor for a little while now is that he was open to the idea of coaching in the NBA.
After North Carolina’s recent hire, that no longer looks to be the case and Michigan State will continue facing Dusty and recruiting against Michigan every year — for the time being.
This hire means that the Big Ten retained one of the best coaches in the country and it’s going to be that much harder to win the conference moving forward. Honestly, more competition in the Big Ten is a good thing because winning the conference might just make you a favorite to win it all.
How does North Carolina‘s hire affect MSU?
Everyone expected the North Carolina hire to create a sort of domino effect in college basketball, sparking its own coaching carousel. There were some rumors that it would be Florida’s Todd Golden, then Tommy Lloyd of Arizona was mentioned, Ben McCollum of Iowa came up, too, and May was considered one of the top targets as well.
With everyone turning down the job, North Carolina had to get creative. Everyone thought that he might go to the NBA and poach Billy Donovan from the Chicago Bulls, but he wanted to wait until after the season to negotiate and North Carolina just wasn’t patient enough for that.
Instead, the Tar Heels hired Mike Malone who was just fired by the Denver Nuggets last year and hasn’t been on a college coaching staff since 2001.
North Carolina apparently liked the Bill Belichick hire so much that they decided to double-dip on pro coaches who were years removed from coaching to lead its two biggest programs.
Not only does this keep Dusty May away from UNC and at Michigan, but it doesn’t open an NBA job for the Wolverines’ head coach to really look at. I thought that there was a chance that he could go to Chicago but I just don’t see that happening at this moment. If he wins a national title on Monday night, I wouldn’t be all that shocked to see him wait for some other NBA openings.
For now, though, Dusty will remain at Michigan and North Carolina will continue to botch coaching hires. This is a great development for the rivalry, but Spartan fans wouldn’t have minded seeing Michigan regress back to the 2023-24 version of itself.