Everyone saw the photo.
There was Michigan men’s basketball coach Dusty May, legs crossed, left arm draped casually over the back of a chair. Behind him, Michigan State fans packed into the Izzone – Michigan State’s student section – screaming, booing, and unloading everything they had.
The snapshot, taken ahead of the Wolverines’ 83-71 win over the Spartans in East Lansing back on Jan. 30, caught fire across social media within hours. May’s calm demeanor drowning in a sea of green and white.
Michigan coach Dusty May looks on during warmups before a game against Michigan State. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
May addressed the viral moment on Monday when he joined FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd on “The Herd.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you actually enjoyed this,” Cowherd said, suggesting May was silently taunting Spartan fans when the photo was taken.
May laughed at the premise, but he didn’t exactly deny it.
“I’m completely out of how I am by nature when I’m coaching now,” May said. “I’m a small, fiery, Irish guy who probably got in more fights growing up than I had easy days. Once I got into coaching, I basically left all of that behind and became a borderline pacifist.”
And that right there is part of what made the image so striking.
Ahead of one of college basketball’s fiercest rivalries, with the Izzone — widely regarded as one of the loudest student sections in the sport — unleashing their fury on him, May looked unbothered.
“If a bunch of 18- to 22-year-olds who were probably overserved beginning at 8 a.m. want to yell and scream obscenities at me, let them go ahead,” May said. “It’s all part of the game.”
Which raises the obvious question: Was Cowherd correct in his initial assumption? Did May, who is now in his second season at Michigan and has the Wolverines in position to secure a No. 1 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament, get some quiet satisfaction out of the moment?
“There’s nothing any of those people can say that is going to get a rise out of me,” May admitted. “So yes, in a way, I did enjoy it, but just for the fact that those kids are never going to be able to get under my skin.”
On Sunday, the rivalry resumes in Ann Arbor, and this time, it’ll be Michigan State walking into the storm.
