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.

