May Madness: This March, FAU coach has Owls on cusp of title

Dusty May’s March Madness run with FAU likely was one few sawcoming.

May had, to be fair, not much better than minimal namerecognition when he took the Florida Atlantic job five years ago.That wasn’t the case with almost all the other FAU coaches over theyears, names like Mike Jarvis and Matt Doherty and Michael Curryand Sidney Green and Rex Walters.

Curry had been an NBA coach and played for years in the league.Green was an NBA lottery pick. Doherty coached at North Carolina,his alma mater, and Notre Dame. Jarvis had been at three otherschools and coached a high schooler named Patrick Ewing. Walterswas a Big 8 star at Kansas and played in the NBA.

And their FAU resumes don’t compare — some don’t come even close— to what May has done.

A school that used to be known for coaches looking to reboundnow has a team headed to the Final Four, led by a coach whose claimto fame when he entered coaching was that he was a student managerfor Bob Knight at Indiana.

“I think Coach May obviously has done an incredible job buildingthis program from humble beginnings,” FAU athletic director BrianWhite said. “I think it is a great sign for the whole universityand the athletic department that FAU is a place where you can comeand build something special.”

The Final Four — FAU (35-3) plays San Diego State (31-6) onSaturday in Houston, before Miami (29-7) plays UConn (29-8) in theother national semifinal — is rarefied air for the Owls. Truly.Before this year, the last time the Owls were in the final four ofany postseason tournament was 2002, and that was the ASunConference Tournament.

Think about that. Go two decades without so much as a trip to aconference final four, and end up this year in the Final Four. It’sa crazy ride orchestrated by the only coach to win 100 games atFAU, someone who hadn’t played in the NBA or been a head coachanywhere else, big-time or even small-time.

“Florida Atlantic is a new university,” May said. “It’s beenbooming before I got here. One of the reasons I took it was becauseit was the right place at the right time, and it’s growingexponentially. So we’ve talked about it. We’ve just never had thatmoment as a university.”

Until now.

There’s no Division I men’s basketball team in the country thathas a better record this season than FAU. No team with more wins.No team with a longer winning streak. No team with a better homerecord, either.

All that would have been hard to envision five years ago. Orfive months ago, for that matter.

The excitement on FAU’s campus was felt most at the campusbookstore Tuesday. The Owls’ Final Four apparel arrived late thatmorning, and students, alumni and fans walked around the storelooking for their March Madness gear.

Some students stood on FaceTime with their parents, asking whatsize t-shirts to bring home to them.

“Gotta spend some money here and support,” Chas Kaplan said ashe checked out with a couple red and grey shirts.

And he’s not even a student. Kaplan’s aunt works at theuniversity, and he traveled from Columbus, Ohio, to FAU to tour ofthe school’s athletic department and support the Owls’ tournamentrun.

FAU has tended to be a school where coaches go with hopes ofwinning, yes, but also reviving their own careers. It worked outfor all sides during Lane Kiffin’s three years as football coach atthe school; the Owls won two Conference USA championships andKiffin landed the Ole Miss job. He’s been the exception to therule; FAU wasn’t exactly a springboard back to the biggest levelsof big-time for other coaches who made their way to Boca Raton.

It didn’t work for Willie Taggart, who was fired at FloridaState and then got fired last fall by FAU after being unable tocome close to matching Kiffin’s success. The jury is out on TomHerman, the former Houston football coach who’ll coach his firstgame for the Owls this fall. Kiffin arrived with the burden ofexpectation and delivered. Taggart didn’t. Time will tell onHerman.

“At Florida Atlantic, we will see great things happen,” Kiffinsaid on the day he got hired at FAU. “For us to do the impossible,we have to see the invisible.”

May saw the invisible. He has done the improbable. He’s two winsaway from the impossible.

He arrived at FAU five years ago for his first chance at being ahead coach and inherited — to be polite — less-than-stellarfacilities and a program with almost no basketball history to speakof.

The facilities are better now, with more upgrades on the way inthe coming months. The Owls’ home arena, which can hold about 3,000fans if the fire marshal isn’t looking, might sell out next season.And some people might not know how to pronounce Boca Raton — it’sRa-tone, by the way — but certainly more people in the basketballworld now know what’s capable at FAU.

“The brand enhancement is just phenomenal and that’s the reasonwe have Division I athletics, to be the front porch for theuniversity,” White said. “Then exposure that we’ve gotten duringthis run for the whole university, you just can’t buy that.”

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AP Sports Writer Alanis Thames in Boca Raton, Floridacontributed.