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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, November 2, 2022 — 15
Sports

From second grade to Michigan, how Dickinson and Williams II grew together

PAUL NASR
Daily Sports Editor

Bruce Shingler looks back on it
fondly.
Years ago, back when he coached
the DC Assault AAU team that
included the fourth-grade version
of now-Michigan forward Terrance
Williams II, he remembers a behe-
moth of an elementary schooler
causing problems for his team.
So Shingler enlisted Williams to
help him solve the problem.
“I (didn’t) want to play against
(Dickinson) no more, he’s too good,”
Shingler told The Daily. “We had to
get him on our team. So (I told) Ter-
rance: ‘Go get him.’ ”
Yes, you read that right. Those
aren’t the words of a college or high
school coach. Those are the words
of Williams’ fourth grade basket-
ball coach.
Because Dickinson and Williams
go way, way back.
***
The duo met even earlier than
the fourth-grade basketball recruit-
ment scene. They first connected
back in second grade, competing
against each other in the AAU cir-
cuit. That early competition laid
the groundwork for an unbreakable
connection that has grown even
stronger in the decade plus since.
That foundation grew when
Shingler and Williams’ recruiting

efforts succeeded. Sure enough,
Dickinson joined Williams at DC
Assault in fifth grade, creating a
juggernaut that no elementary-
aged basketball player expects to
deal with.
“You see that advance, they
were a little more advanced than
the average ten-year-old,” Shingler
recalled. “(Our team) would always
get questioned that we were older
than other people, because of how
big we were and how much we
would win by.”
It makes sense. When the aver-
age ten-year-old is terrorized by a
kid who was already 6-foot-2 and
strapped with sports goggles in
Dickinson, they can’t help but call
foul play and scream that it’s unfair.
Pair that with Williams, a big, goofy
kid bursting with talent, and what
caring parent of a poor fourth-grad-
er on the other team wouldn’t ques-
tion its legality?
Because if being that talented
and building stellar on-court chem-
istry at the age of ten was illegal,
Dickinson and Williams were
breaking the law.
But it wasn’t always easy. There
was strong competition not only
locally, but nationally as well. DC
Assault was a band of elementary-
aged rock stars, with multiple other
teammates — such as Georgetown’s
Jay Heath and Rhode Island’s Ish-
mael Leggett — also going on to D1
basketball careers down the road.

So the team would travel, facing the
best the country had to offer.
However, despite their massive
potential and development for the
future, they were still kids at the
end of the day — they were always
having fun.
“It was one infamous pillow fight
that I always remember,” Shingler
said. “One of them hit the coach
with a pillow, laughing and joking,
and then it just turned into a huge
pillow fight with everybody laugh-
ing and joking.”
It’s unclear if Dickinson or Wil-
liams swung the first pillow, but it’s
abundantly clear that the pair was
creating lifelong memories — both
on the court and off — from a very
young age.
Those memories helped build a
bond, one that only got stronger as
the years continued on.
***
As Dickinson and Williams con-
tinued their growth leading into
high school — with Dickinson surg-
ing to 6-foot-11 by the time he was 15
— they began taking the game even
more seriously, which included
additional training outside of team
play. Just as Dickinson joined Wil-
liams at DC Assault in fifth grade,
Williams joined Dickinson in train-
ing with Alex Harris of Evolution
Basketball as high school neared.
Those training sessions helped
hone their skills, and Harris always
had a blast working with the both of

them together — he still does when-
ever he can get their busy schedules
to line up.
Although competition between
each other was limited at Evolu-
tion, it ramped up as the pair joined
AAU’s Team Takeover, where they
played leading up to and through-
out high school.
“Nobody wants to lose to one of
their best friends, and give them
bragging rights,” Team Takeover
coach Keith Stevens told The Daily.
“When those guys lock horns and
they got between the lines, the
friendship went out the door.”
While competing together at
AAU was their summer gig, during
the high school season that com-
petition took a whole new form.
Dickinson and Williams, brothers
in almost every sense of the word,
took different routes for their high
school careers.
Routes that made them arch
rivals.
Now, there wasn’t actually a
falling out between the two. They
didn’t suddenly hate each other
after picking different schools and
still played on Team Takeover
together. But Williams enrolled at
Gonzaga High School his fresh-
man year, while Dickinson went to
Gonzaga’s biggest rival: DeMatha
Catholic High School. That rivalry
ensured that the two would com-
pete against each other in high-
stakes affairs, regularly.

The two teams went head-to-
head nine times over the course of
those four years, and things always
got spicy.
“They matched up against each
other a lot, because we weren’t a
big team,” Gonzaga coach Stephen
Turner told The Daily. “… Those
were wars when those two would
go against each other.”
It was Mike Jones — DeMatha’s
coach at the time — who remem-
bered perhaps the greatest war
story of them all.
Jones recalled the two teams
colliding when both were nation-
ally ranked their sophomore year.
Dickinson matched up against Wil-
liams, but Williams was unfazed.
Williams started the game hitting
three consecutive three-pointers
on Dickinson.
And on his way down the court
after the third one, he hit Dickinson
with the ‘Jordan shrug’.
“(He was) basically (telling)
Hunter, ‘Are you gonna guard me?’
” Jones told The Daily. “We wound
up losing the game, and I remember
that fire that it kind of lit in Hunter.”
Dickinson got the last laugh in
the series, going 6-3 against Gon-
zaga in his high school career, but
moments like that are what helped
build their bond. It wasn’t just the
times competing on the same team,
like when they played together at
AAU, but also the times where they
were truly apart — beating each
other — that played into their par-
allel routes to the Michigan men’s
basketball team.
But while they were competing
like enemies in high school, those
battles were paving the way for
their paths to fully realign once
again.
That came to fruition in Ann
Arbor.
***
When Dickinson and Williams
— now both captains for Michi-
gan as juniors — play together this
year, you’ll see how their lifelong
bond translates to chemistry on the
court.
But ask the people who grew up
with them, and they’ll say they saw
it all along.
“When they were both fresh-
men, I reached out to (former
Michigan coach) John Beilein, and
talked to him about both of them,”
Harris said. “I just said, ‘Hey, I
know they’re really young, but
they’re both perfect for Michigan.’

Shingler — who was unsuccess-
ful in recruiting them to South
Carolina, where he coached at the
time — saw it too. He told Michigan
coach Juwan Howard, who was all
over Dickinson on the recruiting
GRACE BEAL/Daily

trail at the time, to keep an eye out
for Williams, telling Juwan: “He’s
your type of guy.”
Turner, who only coached Wil-
liams, knew it was the case for both
of them as well.
“Michigan’s gonna love those
two playing together a lot more
minutes,” Turner said. “Because
they really feed off each other … you
can’t put a price tag on their rela-
tionship, in terms of them knowing
what the other one’s thinking or
wanting to do. You’ll see it.”
At Michigan media days on Oct.
14, each player commanded a table
to field questions from reporters.
After over a decade of competition
with and against each other, Dick-
inson and Williams sat mere feet
from each other as they were asked
to reflect on what it was like going
from elementary-school basketball
to college captains, together.
“It is something that I think is
really special for us,” Dickinson
said. “I’m really happy that (Wil-
liams) is here with me. … He was
really good when we were younger,
like he is now … somebody that I
admire.”
At the table across from him,
Williams echoed similar senti-
ments.
“I’ve been through a lot with
him, it definitely felt different
when we were both chosen cap-
tains,” Williams said. “… It’s surreal
… Growing up with a childhood
friend (and) now you’re playing
basketball at one of the highest
stages with him, so it’s definitely a
great feeling.”
The two captains shoulder an
extra load. The only seniors on
the team are transfers, making
them and fellow junior-captain
Jace Howard the Wolverines’ lon-
gest tenured players. As the young
team looks for leadership, it’ll look
towards two kids who grew into
men, together.
So if you looked out onto the
youth basketball courts of the
DMV over ten years ago, you’d see
Dickinson and Williams, together.
If you went to training sessions,
you’d see Dickinson and Williams,
together.
If you went to the elite high-
school AAU circuits of the DMV,
you’d see Dickinson and Williams,
together. If you went to some of the
DMV’s biggest high school basket-
ball games, you’d see Dickinson and
Williams competing against each
other, together.
So to know what their relationship
is made of, how tight their bond is.
Just look out onto the Crisler Center
court this year, and you’ll see Dickin-
son and Williams, leading Michigan.
Together.
From fourth-grade AAU to captaining Michigan together, Terrence Williams and Hunter Dickinson have grown up — on and off the court — together.

Abbie Telgenhof: It’s too early to judge Michigan

As
I
sur-
veyed the room
at
Michigan
Media Day, going
through my list of
interview ques-
tions, I knew I
was
prepared,
but still some-
how felt lost. It
was as if I didn’t
recognize
half
the players on the Michigan men’s
basketball team.
There was one more-than famil-
iar face, though. Directly in the
middle sat junior center Hunter
Dickinson, towering over everyone
even while seated. With a swarm of
reporters around him, along with
junior forward Terrance Williams
and junior guard Jace Howard, the
three were easily identifiable.
Yet, reliant on the nametags
placed in front of each player, I
realized that I hadn’t seen many
of the faces don the maize and blue
until that day.
And likely, neither have you.
Entering their fourth season
under the leadership of coach
Juwan Howard, the Wolverines
underwent a tumultuous offseason
that featured major roster turn-
over. Nine new players — including
two graduate transfers, five fresh-
men and a student-manager turned
player — make up the bulk of the
team. In fact, there isn’t a true
senior on the roster at all. Instead,
they’re relying on the transfers to
provide veteran knowledge and
three juniors for captain leader-
ship.
Graduate transfer guards Jaelin
Llewellyn and Joey Baker are the
current talk of the town. Llewellyn
continues a long line of graduate
transfer point guards for Michi-
gan, and Baker is highly touted as
an outside shooter. The five fresh-

men include highly recruited play-
ers like guards Jett Howard and
Dug McDaniel. Picking up an inter-
national player in forward Youseff
Khayat, the Wolverines’ roster is
impressive on paper, but largely
untested in collegiate play. Even
Llewellyn and Baker will have to
adjust to the Big Ten style of bas-
ketball.
But, amid the total team trans-
formation, pre-season speculation
about Michigan hasn’t diminished.
Predictions about all teams are a
constant. Articles are published
from the final buzzer of the NCAA
Tournament to the tipoff of the
next season’s first games. Takes are
crafted, rankings are made (and
then made again) and the cycle
continues.
But this season, that cycle
shouldn’t
dominate
Michigan’s
narrative.
It’s too early to judge the Wol-
verines.
Throughout the offseason, this
Michigan team has been placed in
every position imaginable. Ranked
in a wide range from the top to
the bottom of the Big Ten, nobody
seems to know what to make of this
squad. But that’s just it — you don’t
have to.
“I feel like people think we have
a lot of question marks around
our team,” Dickinson said at Big
Ten Media Days on Oct. 12. “We
got some transfers that are gonna
come in and some freshmen that
are gonna come in and play a lot of
minutes. … I definitely think we’re
being underrated, but I think that’s
fine for us.”
Last season, the Wolverines
started the season a top title con-
tender, when in reality, they’d
endured a large amount of roster
turnover, and were still acclimat-
ing to an underclassman-dominant
team. Coming in as No. 6 in the AP

Poll preseason ranking, Michigan
was in nearly everyone’s lists of
favorites for the Big Ten title, and
some even thought it could break
the conference’s 22-year national
title drought.
It didn’t take long for things to
take a turn for the worse. In just
one week, the Wolverines dropped
from No. 4 to No. 20 in the AP Poll,
after a crushing loss to unranked
Seton Hall. Michigan eventually
fell out of the rankings altogether
in Week 5, where they remained for
the rest of the season.
Despite that, the Wolverines still
managed a historic fifth-straight

run to the Sweet 16 after an upset
over No. 2 seeded Tennessee —
marking a new Big Ten record.
If the Michigan faithful gained
anything from last season, it
should be perspective. Judging
an unproven team is fruitless, and
that practice leads to more frustra-
tion than enjoyment.
This year’s circumstances war-
rant different expectations from
the Wolverines. Namely, no expec-
tations. There’s no need to judge
this team as any better or worse
than the teams before it.
“Everyone have their predic-
tions and everyone have their

opinions,” Juwan said. “We’re
just gonna keep forging ahead and
keep growing. Keep trying to get
better game by game, practice by
practice. … I’m really looking for-
ward to our chances.”
Don’t judge them now, on the
cusp of their first exhibition game
with Ferris State. Don’t judge them
in a month when dominant blue-
blood teams like Kentucky and
North Carolina pose major chal-
lenges for them. Don’t judge them
in two months, or three, or four or
when you’re sitting on your couch
watching the March Madness
Selection Show because they’ve

proven their seed isn’t their ceiling.
And it extends beyond just
team-wide expectations.
Don’t judge Dickinson’s abil-
ity to mesh with new point guard
Llewellyn from the get-go. Don’t
judge Baker’s initial shooting abil-
ity after an off-season hip surgery.
Don’t judge Jett playing college
ball for the first time differently
because his dad’s the coach. Don’t
judge the head-scratching lineups
they’ll throw on the floor while
they’re still figuring out their iden-
tity.
Instead, maybe get to know
them first.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

MEN’S BASKETBALL

ABBIE

TELGENHOF

SELENA SUN/Daily
With nine new faces on the Michigan men’s basketball team, it’s too early to judge the Wolverines.

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