Back in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Hunter Dickinson helps deliver Kansas basketball a win
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana — Elmarko Jackson and Jamari McDowell got to see firsthand Saturday what Hunter Dickinson has experienced for years.
Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall is full of fans. The Indiana Hoosiers’ faithful are hurling all sort of vitriol Dickinson’s way. And man, the two Kansas basketball freshman guards loved it.
The fans came into the building expecting a show, as McDowell put it, and the Jayhawks’ senior center helped deliver one. Dickinson finished with a 17-point and 14-rebound double-double, as he played a pivotal role in No. 2 Kansas (10-1) mounting a comeback in the second half and winning 75-71 against Indiana (7-3, 2-0 in Big Ten Conference). From Jackson’s perspective Dickinson is sort of the villain of their team, and he’s continued to play that role well in Jackson’s eyes.
“Hopefully it’s a lot easier for guys when a lot of the boos are at me,” said Dickinson, who spent the past three seasons at Michigan before transferring to Kansas and the Big 12 Conference. “So, I hope that takes a little bit of pressure off of them. But it’s a tough place to play. That’s why — they’re really good at home. They’re really well coached. And they’ve got a lot of talent on their team. But we’re a damn good team, too.”
Dickinson doesn’t shy away from the attention he receives from opposing fans because, in his mind, it’s not going to go away any time soon. He mused he could save a baby in Bloomington and still end up getting booed, which may or may not be true. It’s about embracing what’s going to come his way anyway, because allowing it to consume him wouldn’t help him play any better.
McDowell loves to see Dickinson in that sort of environment, and he’ll have plenty of more opportunities to experience that when Big 12 play gets going in January. So, too, does Jackson. It drives them to want to be even better themselves, even if the fans aren’t directing the attention toward them near as much.
Sure, Dickinson didn’t start off all that well against Indiana. As Kansas coach Bill Self noted, the shots weren’t falling for him in the first half even though he ended up scoring one more point during the first 20 minutes than the second 20. But that second half Dickinson delivered, and helped build confidence in his teammates along the way simply by the way he carried himself in a hostile environment.
“I think it’s basketball,” Self said. “I think they’re human beings, and I think sometimes they make shots and sometimes they miss the same shots they just made. Kid’s playing 38 minutes. He’s not coming out. So, I thought, to me, he played like an All-American the second half even though his numbers weren’t outlandish. But, guys, getting 14 rebounds — I mean, he’s basically averaging that. And he’s going against two legitimate big guys.”
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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Back in Assembly Hall, Hunter Dickinson helps Kansas basketball win
