14

Thursday, June 3, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.

Dickinson declares for NBA 

Draft while retaining eligibility

Paul Nasr: The NCAA failed Michigan, 

and softball as a whole

After 
an 
accolade-filled 

freshman 
season, 
Hunter 

Dickinson is testing the NBA 
waters. 

Wednesday 
afternoon, 

Dickinson 
announced 
that 

he will enter the NBA Draft 
while signing with an NCAA-
certified agent in order to 
retain his college eligibility. 

“It has always been my 

dream to play in the NBA, so it 
is important for me to gather 

information 
before 
making 

this 
decision,” 
Dickinson 

posted on Twitter. “I look 
forward to getting feedback 
and I am excited for the next 
steps of this process.” 

The 
7-foot-1 
Dickinson 

burst onto the scene as one of 
the nation’s premier centers, 
dominating the Big Ten as a 
freshman. He averaged 14.1 
points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.4 
blocks per game across 28 
appearances, 
23 
of 
which 

were starts. He was named 
Second Team All-American, 
First Team All-Big Ten and 
captured Big Ten Freshman of 
the Week honors a whopping 
seven times. 

Dickinson 
becomes 

the 
second 
Michigan 

underclassmen 
to 
declare 

for the draft, joining Franz 
Wagner, 
who 
declared 

last 
month 
following 
his 

sophomore 
season. 
While 

Wagner is a projected lottery 
pick, 
Dickinson 
has 
not 

appeared in many mock drafts. 

Should Dickinson stay in 

the NBA Draft, it would be 
a major loss for Michigan. 
With fifth-year senior center 
Austin Davis not taking an 
NCAA waiver to return for a 
sixth season, the Wolverines’ 
depth at center is limited 
to Dickinson and incoming 
freshman 
Moussa 
Diabate, 

who 
projects 
as 
more 
of 

a power forward. In that 
scenario, 
it’s 
likely 
that 

Michigan 
would 
need 
to 

search outside the program 
for options. 

Dickinson will have until 

July 7th, ten days following 

the NBA Draft Combine, to 
withdraw from the draft.

Dickinson 
proved 
to 
be 

a major factor in many of 
Michigan’s 
signature 
wins 

this 
season. 
He 
notched 

11 
points, 
15 
rebounds 

and 5 blocks in a road win 
over Wisconsin on Feb. 14 
following 
a 
23-day 
pause, 

scored 22 points against Ohio 
State in a top-five matchup on 
Feb. 21, and limited National 
Player of the Year frontrunner 
Luka Garza to a season low 16 
points in a Feb. 25 win over 
Iowa. In the nation’s toughest 
conference, Dickinson never 
looked the part of a freshman 
for the Wolverines. 

Much of Dickinson’s success 

can be attributed to Michigan 
coach Juwan Howard. The 
two frequently work together 
on one-on-one film sessions, 
and Howard’s past as a former 
big man at both the collegiate 
and professional level have 
helped Dickinson.

Sleepless in Seattle. 
For the Michigan softball team, 

a long weekend in the Pacific 
Northwest turned even longer in 
the early hours of Monday morning. 

After dealing with 14 innings of 

NCAA Player of the Year finalist 
Gabbie Plain, Michigan was sent 
packing back to Ann Arbor. The 
double–header 
sweep 
abruptly 

ended the Wolverines’ promising 
season, yet they were denied the 
opportunity of a night’s stay in 
Seattle before heading back home. 

Instead, they had to endure 

a near-instant turnaround. At 4 
A.M. PST, Michigan was at Seattle-
Tacoma 
International 
Airport, 

checking in its large travel party for 
a 6 A.M. flight to Detroit. 

After already feeling wronged 

by being sent to the West Coast 
instead of hosting a regional, 
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins did 
not appreciate the travel schedule 
thrust upon her team. She took aim 
at the NCAA in a series of tweets 
from the airport. 

Having 
just 
completed 
her 

37th season as the head softball 
coach at Michigan, the winningest 
coach in NCAA softball history is 
no stranger to the NCAA and the 
way it conducts its business. She 
does not shy away from calling the 

organization out either. 

This past March, for instance, 

disparities between the men’s 
and women’s NCAA basketball 
tournaments were laid bare on 
social media. Hutchins and her 
team made their voices heard in 
the matter, directly criticizing the 
NCAA for its failures.

Hutchins has become a titan 

in activism for equality in sports 
throughout her storied career. 
Her Title IX fight has been well-
documented, 
and 
tremendous 

strides have been made since 
Hutchins 
began 
coaching 
at 

Michigan in 1985. 

There is, however, a long way to 

go. 

Despite all the progress, there 

continue to be roadblocks. When a 
group of athletes lay it all on-the-
line in elimination softball, battling 
late into the night, a 6 A.M. cross-
country commercial flight early the 
next morning becomes one of those 
roadblocks. 

The Wolverines’ grievances with 

the NCAA earlier in the week were 
directed towards the organization’s 
disregard for their body of work on 
the softball diamond this season. 
They were sent west, forced to 
face an underseeded Washington 
team that they would eventually 
succumb to, and then sent home 
immediately afterward. 

“(The NCAA softball committee) 

disrespected our entire conference.” 

Hutchins said after the selection 
show on May 16. “(They) absolutely 
did not do a very good job.” 

Hutchins believed the NCAA 

did not truly know the teams it 
was evaluating, an outcome she 
foreshadowed earlier that week. 

And her prophecy came true. 
The COVID pandemic caused 

major schedule changes in sports 
throughout the NCAA landscape. 
Cutting down on travel decreases 
the amount of out-of-conference 
games teams can play, and limits 
their abilities to show postseason 
NCAA committees how they stack 
up to the rest of the nation when 
seeding rolls around. 

This became less of an issue in 

sports like basketball. In basketball, 
the NCAA has been refining its 
NET rankings to aid committees 
in team evaluations over the last 
couple of seasons. With NET, teams 
are evaluated using a far more 
holistic approach, one that goes 
beyond simple strength of schedule 
via 
opponents’ 
records 
alone. 

NET uses multifaceted analytics 
to 
provide 
greater-accuracy 

evaluations of teams, giving teams 
that opted for more-local schedules 
due to the pandemic a fair-shake in 
tournament seeding. 

That type of high-level, complex 

data was unavailable for those 

 JARED GREENSPAN

Daily Sports Writer

 PAUL NASR

Daily Sports Writer

MADDIE HINKLEY/Daily

The NCAA not only failed Michigan, but the sport of softball. 

Read more at michigandaily.com

Read more at michigandaily.com

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily

SPORTS

