Report: Ohio State targeting Florida Atlantic's Dusty May, Xavier's Sean Miller for next men's basketball coach

A pair of sitting Division I head coach have emerged as potential candidates in the Ohio State men’s basketball coaching search, according to Adam Jardy of the Columbus Dispatch: Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May and Xavier’s Sean Miller.

The search, which is reportedly still in early stages, will apparently pick up in pace later in March. Ohio State fired Chris Holtmann as the head men’s basketball coach in February.

May, it was previously reported, had preliminary conversations with Ohio State about the job opening.

“The key in all of this is because we have this time we can really do a lot of research,” new Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said to the Dispatch in February. “Then we can have a little bit of patience going into the first week of March. We should have an idea of where are we by Selection Sunday. Are we zeroed in on finalists? Are we zeroed in on a bigger group? Are they still playing? A lot of things will filter out over the next couple weeks.”

May led Florida Atlantic on a surprise Final Four run last year and became a hot name to potentially move on before the Owls signed him to a large contract extension. However, things have taken a notable step back for Florida Atlantic this season, despite returning effectively the entire lineup from the Final Four team.

A move to a Power 5 program with more resources and in a footprint with plenty of talent could be attractive for May — plus Ohio State has relatively recent high-level success, making a Final Four in the 2012 NCAA Tournament. He’s also a midwest native, born in Peoria, Illinois.

Miller, on the other hand, had a long and rather successful run at Arizona — though he never cracked his Elite 8 glass ceiling — that was ended in 2021 as results started to fall off and eventually wins were vacated as a result of the FBI investigation into college basketball recruiting that broke in the fall of 2017.

After a year away from coaching, he was hired to be the head coach at Xavier, located in Cincinnati, for a second stint as the head coach there. He’s been moderately successful with the Musketeers, going 27-10 in Year 1 before coaching a team closer to .500 this season.

With a 455-170 career record as a head coach and ties to the region — he’s from Pennsylvania — from his personal and professional life, it’s easy to see why Miller might make sense at the biggest name in college sports in the state of Ohio.