Ohio State has engaged in preliminary conversations with Florida Atlantic coach Dusty May for its men's basketball coaching job, sources told The Dispatch.
The university is in the early stages of its search with incoming athletic director Ross Bjork set to officially join the department March 1 .
A native of Peoira, Illinois, May led Florida Atlantic to a Cinderella-level Final Four appearance last season as the Owls went 35-4 overall and he was named CBS Sports National Coach of the Year. Florida Atlantic had made just one NCAA Tournament appearance in school history prior to the run. The Owls earned a No. 9 seed and beat No. 8 seed Memphis, No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson , No. 4 seed Tennessee and No. 3 seed Kansas State before falling to eventual national runner-up San Diego State 72-71.
May is 121-66 in six seasons, a school record for coaching wins, and has not experienced a losing season. The Owls are currently receiving votes in the Associated Press poll but opened this season ranked No. 10. They are 20-6 overall and 10-3 in their first season in the American Athletic Conference after moving from Conference USA.
After the Final Four run, May was able to retain his roster and sign a 10-year contract extension paying him $1.25 million that increases by 5% each year until 2033 . According to the USA Today coaches' salary database, which has contract information for 13 of the Big Ten's 14 men's basketball coaches for the 2022-23 season , Minnesota's Ben Johnson was last in the league in salary at $2,009,000. Contract information for Penn State's Micah Shrewsberry, now the coach at Notre Dame, was not known.
May stands to make a total base salary of around $16 million for the duration of the contract. It also required Florida Atlantic to increase its operating budget for the men's basketball program by 20% this year.
May's buyout drops from $1.5 million to $1 million after Feb. 29.
He does have a tie to the Big Ten: May was a student manager at Indiana and then returned to the program in an administrative role from 2002-05. His first assistant coaching job was at Eastern Michigan before moving on to Murray State and UAB before being hired at Louisiana Tech, where he was on staff from 2009-15.
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When coach Mike White was hired at Florida, May went with him and spent three years with the Gators before being named head coach at Florida Atlantic in 2018.
After firing coach Chris Holtmann on Feb. 14, Ohio State is not expected to officially hire a full-time replacement until at least mid-March. Interim coach Jake Diebler is coaching out the remainder of the season and could draw consideration for the position should Ohio State make the NCAA Tournament and make a run.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State basketball coach search: Dusty May in preliminary talks
