Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson said that once upon a time, he used to find it flattering when he would get double-teamed earlier in his career.
“Now it kind of gets a little annoying,” the 7-foot-2 center said Thursday. “You get so used to it, it’s kind of expected. Like I’m almost shocked if I get a one-on-one.”
The experience is nothing new for Dickinson; as his coach Bill Self noted, he’s probably been drawing multiple defenders since his sophomore year of high school.
Six years in, though, it seems it’s starting to wear on him. Particularly since the Missouri game on Dec. 9, in which the Tigers sagged off KJ Adams and Elmarko Jackson in order to stack the lane with pesky defenders and inhibit Dickinson, it’s been hard for him to find much of any room in the post.
Dickinson was “frustrated” with his play, as he put it Thursday. But then he got a chance to unwind: a few days off following the Yale game and through Christmas. Since returning, he said, “having that reset, coming in with a new mind, I feel very refreshed.”
“It was amazing,” Dickinson said. “I think I really needed that break bad. I just feel like my headspace and where I was at, I feel like that break — going home, just not thinking about basketball, not thinking about anything for two, three days, just being with family — I thought (it) was really great for me.”
The center continues to put up exceptional numbers at 18.3 points and 12.5 rebounds per game, but it’s been tougher sledding for him of late on offense in particular. As Self put it, he’s been getting plenty of touches but “missing the same shots he was making before.”
That came to a head against Yale, when he was held to single-digit points for the first time all year and went just 4-for-9 shooting. “To be honest with you, I thought he looked tired” against both Indiana and Yale, Self said.
And so the break was well timed, and there remain plenty of opportunities for improvement and signs of promise. For one thing, Self said that KU’s inconsistent 3-point shooting is part of the reason teams have been able to defend Dickinson with so many bodies.
“It gives more people the ability to say ‘OK, until you prove (it) there, this is for sure how we’re going to guard you,'” Self said.
Yale was transfer guard Nick Timberlake’s best game since opening night, providing some cause for optimism that KU will do better in that department.
Dickinson, for his part, also said he’s working on “just being more aggressive with my positioning, and just going back to my old ways of trying to get deeper paint touches.” Self noted that when you start deeper in the paint, it’s harder for teams to run over and swarm you.
“When you kind of play in that mid-post area, it seems like it’s an easier double, shorter distance to come, and it doesn’t really take advantage of him — but that’s where he likes to play,” Self said. “So we’ll make a couple adjustments. He’ll be OK.”
