OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
For better and worse, I've developed a highly subjective and totally "from my gut" spectrum of mid-major coaches. 1-10 scale with 1 being John Groce and 10 being Bill Self.May built one great team which atrophied a bit the second year. Kelsey has had sustained success at Winthrop, rolling through multiple roster constructions dominating the conference, then succeeded again at Charleston.
Memphis doesn't sloppily turn the ball over at the end of their first round game last year and Dusty May is a name for Saint Louis and DePaul, not Louisville and Michigan. Kelsey's resume is not vulnerable to a single random event changing it that way.
Self kinda had the merits of both May and Kelsey at that stage, plus he was a decade younger than those guys.
I mean they'd been at a higher level than BU, sure, but BU went 53-1 in conference at SFA and scored two NCAA upsets. He had everybody's attention, including this board when many were advocating for Groce's sacking a year earlier.
I have May and Kelsey in the 6-7 range on this scale. Both have a number of quallities that could translate well to the power conference level, but both have a number of questions. For May, he obviously has the Final Four experience and the turnaround experience at FAU. However, he also has a season with a pretty big letdown and only one school where he's been a head coach. Kelsey has a longer track record of success and two programs. However, he doesn't have the signature NCAA upset/run.
If you forced me to choose, I'd probably give May a better chance to succeed by a very slight margin. However, I think that's more because I think Michigan is a better turnaround candidate right now than Louisville is. It's going to take a pretty major cultural change at Louisville after everything that has happened there the last 7-8 years. Full disclosure that I felt Archie Miller was going to be extremely successful at Indiana, so take my opinions with a very healthy grain of salt.