In a stunning turn of events Saturday evening, it was reported by Adrian Wojnarowski that
FAU coach Dusty May would be leaving the program to take the head job at Michigan.
Woj went on to explain that “May became swept away with the alumni network and its fierce loyalty to the university and athletics,” and that “His belief is that that will help transcend some of the inherently transactional nature of the modern NIL/transfer portal era in recruiting and player retention.
In today’s world of college basketball, things move quickly, and about 48 hours ago FAU was competing in the NCAA tournament and now they are entering search season.
FAU athletic director Brian White has typically moved fast in coaching searches, most recently having fired Willie Taggart on November 26th, 2022, and hiring Tom Herman by December 3rd. In the crazy landscape of college basketball, it will be critical for BW to move that quickly, if not faster.
FAU is now left with the decision to compete in the market with the other schools currently Coach-less, or try to rebuild from within. The Owls have rocked with the run it back mentality before and have also brought in big name coaches- so with there being history with both let’s break down 4 total options, 2 from within and 2 from outside.
Home-Cooking:
What partially made FAU so successful over the past 2 years was their ability to make adjustments on the fly, and their overall preparation and that started with the two guys who sat next to Coach May, Todd Abernethy and Kyle Church.
Kyle Church-
Church is a guy who has been with Coach May for a very long time, 11 years total, dating back to 2 years on the staff at Louisiana Tech on Mike Whites’ staff.
He brings a diverse resume to the table, starting with being a former D1 player at UNCC from 2006-2010, and then transitioning to a graduate assistant role with Ole Miss where he focused on individual player development. Following his time as a GA, he was on staff at Chipola College where he worked on scouting and recruiting, something ever important in today’s portal-based world.
Following that he linked up with Coach May at La Tech & Florida where they both were on Mike Whites’ staff, Church was the Director of Basketball operations at both stops and got a boatload of experience in administrative duties including scheduling, which is another important aspect of FAU wants to continue their ascent on the National ladder.
At FAU, Church has stepped into an assistant coaching role and was influential in scouting of opponents, game-plan prep, and tendency adjustment. He also played a major role in scheduling for FAU, and as was evidenced in the Owls nonconference schedule was able to schedule effectively to allow the FAU to compete for an at-large bid.
Church’s ability to combine on the court coaching with his off the court experience is something that makes him an intriguing option and one that has the potential to impact the program in a variety of ways, similar to how Coach May did.
One negative is that he does not have direct head-coaching experience, and with the Owls looking to immediately compete and capitalize on momentum, Brian White could believe that head coaching experience is a necessity. It’s an argument to be had however, the continuity that Church could provide having been with May for over a decade, along with his knowledge of how to compete with NIL & the transfer portal while at FAU can’t be ignored and should be considered.
Expect FAU to interview Church early on in the process and with a strong interview he could definitely be considered for the role.
Todd Abernethy–
Option 2 from the Dusty May Coaching tree is a rising star and a true member of the May tree as he’s a guy that was handpicked by Dusty to come to FAU in 2019 after a season as Head Coach at D3 Trinity International University and 4 seasons as an assistant Coach at Ole Miss. Mays’ connections to Abernethy run deep, as Todd has known him since he attended a Bob knight basketball camp in high school, and the relationship developed so that when Coach had an opening in Boca, Todd was one of the first people he called.
Abernethy is also a former player, having been an all-sec player at Ole Miss in 2006 and playing there for years from 2003-2007. Following that, he played overseas for 6 years and gained a variety of connections in pro leagues across Europe.
Since coming to FAU, Abernethy has been involved in game-plan prep and recruiting, having been an extremely important factor in the Owls ability to compete for players overseas, using his connections flawlessly.
When he came to FAU, Coach May was quoted saying “He is a tireless worker, effective communicator and connects with young people at the highest level,” and his ability to communicate and relate to the younger audience will be a huge selling point for him. In today’s landscape a coach who knows how to communicate with athletes about NIL and the general landscape of college basketball is critical.
Like Church, Abernethy brings a lot to the table that will make him an intriguing candidate for Brian White to consider. His ability to bond with this generation of players is crucial and combining that with his on the court knowledge, recruiting skills, and previous head coaching experience makes him extremely well rounded and would allow for him to have a seamless adjustment to the Head Coaching role. Because of his heavy involvement with recruitment, he’s also someone that could potentially convince recruits to stay, instead of heading to Michigan with Coach May.
He’s another guy that 100% will be interviewed and if FAU does go in house, I would expect that it would be a really close decision between him and Church.
Outside Hires-
Erik Pastrana AC UGA-
This is an intriguing option because Pastrana is a guy who is also been apart of the Coach May journey just in a bit of reverse order, having worked for May on FAUs staff as an assistant in 2018-2019, before eventually hopping on Mike Whites’ Florida & Georgia staffs just a few years later.
He is currently Georgia’s assistant coach being nodded as an exceptional recruiter and is also a Miami native with coaching experience at both the high school and college level in the state of Florida. Those connections would be critical and allow for him to compete for recruits in Florida where the market can be quite competitive.
Pastrana also has head coaching experience, getting the HC nod at NAIA Daytona State College from 2017-2018 prior to heading to FAU.
Pastrana has coached across multiple power 5 conferences, understands the recruiting landscape of South Florida, and has coached at FAU before in an assistant role. Those are very qualifying traits for him to at least get a call to interview for the opening, and considering he’s not super sought after in the market it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities for the Owls to pursue him.
Jim Crutchfield HC Nova Southeastern-
My last option is a bit outside of the box, however winning at any level of college basketball is difficult and Coach Crutchfield has built quite the contender down the road from Boca at Nova and has won consistently for nearly 2 decades at the D2 level.
Across 19 seasons as a D2 Head Coach, Crutchfield is 359-61 and has consistently contended for the D2 NCAA tournament every year, while winning the national championship at NSU last season and going 36-0.
His players do well, having had 5 total professional players, and also multiple division one transfers including Jonathan Pierre to Memphis last season.
Crutchfield runs a high tempo explosive offense that has put up points at 2 different colleges, looking to maximize possessions using dribble drives to open up the floor for shooters, describing his West Liberty game plan as aggressive in an interview with CoachAd.com.
“The way we play, it’s aggressive offensively and it’s aggressive defensively, Crutchfield said. But we never talked about scoring a certain number of points. Our sole objective is to score more points than our opponents,” Crutchfield said.
Although 1 division down, consistent success of an offensive game plan is tough to replicate unless it’s a coach who’s able to make a variety of different players fit his system, which Crutchfield has been exceptional at.
His biggest deterrent will be his lack of D1 & NIL/Transfer portal experience and it may very well take him out of the cards entirely. However, one name some Owls fans have dangled is Josh Schertz and with him likely headed to Saint Louis, Crutchfield is a guy who represents the same kind of lower-level consistent success, just without the D1 prove it opportunity that Schertz has gotten at Indiana State.
The Owls have the chance to give him that opportunity to showcase himself on a D1 level, and with some assistants who can help him navigate the Portal & NIL, he could possibly be successful if his offense translates up 1 level.
Stay tuned on Twitter @Rlastellareport for in the moment updates from #SearchSzn.