Hunter Dickinson came close to rare KU milestone. He joked he should’ve been closer
Hunter Dickinson has posted 53 double-doubles in his college basketball career. That includes 22 in two seasons at Kansas, five in the first 10 games of the 2024-25 campaign.
The 7-foot-2 big man has never recorded a triple-double however, including his three seasons at Michigan.
Dickinson came close on Saturday, scoring 21 points with 14 rebounds and a career-high tying seven assists in the Jayhawks’ 75-60 victory over North Carolina State at Allen Fieldhouse.
“Somebody told me … I forget it was either the under-8 or under-4 (timeout), somebody was like, ‘You have six assists. You passed the ball well today.’ I had it in my mind,” Dickinson said of the triple-double, which would have been the fifth official triple-double in KU history (two by Kevin McCullar one by Jeff Withey, one by Cole Aldrich).
Actually, he thinks he finished closer to that triple-double than KU’s stat sheet indicated.
“First of all, I want out to start out by saying I thought I had more (assists),” he said with a smile, speaking in a postgame interview session with media members. Dickinson thought the correct number of assists might actually be “eight. I might have to go watch (the replay).
“The guys were making it so easy for me,” he added in a serious tone, referring to outside threats Zeke Mayo and Dajuan Harris, who scored a combined 41 points on 8-of-15 3-point shooting.
“We knew how they were going to guard,” Dickinson continued. “We knew they’d be really overly aggressive. That was going to lead to backdoors and stuff like that. We’ve been really working with KJ (Adams, six points, six rebounds, three blocks), getting him down in the post utilizing his size and athleticism. I kind of knew I was going to be able to facilitate out there. Guys made some really good cuts. They found themselves open so I had to hit ‘em.”
He said his assists, “just happened through the game. Plays just occurred. It wasn’t like I was trying to force-feed people. Guys were just getting open.”
Thus he stockpiled assists — and had no turnovers after totaling seven TOs in a loss last Sunday at Missouri — noting that the last time he had 10 or more dimes in a game was “back in middle school (when he indeed had a triple-double). I went to Mater Dei (in Maryland). I was always a great passer. It kind of happens, especially when you are big and people try to double you, it just happens,” Dickinson added.
Dickinson hit 9 of 13 shots. He was 1-of-3 from 3 and 2-of-2 from the line.
“I think when you have so much talent out there, especially on the wings and perimeter, it makes it easy for me down there,” Dickinson said. “I feel I have got lot of space because you’ve got a guy like Zeke who is going out there shooting 5-of-9 (on 3s). Rylan (Griffen, two points, 0-4 from 3) didn’t shoot that well today. He’s one of the best shooters in the country as well. I feel there was a lot of space out there and feel we were able to attack them in a lot of different ways.”
KU went 10-of-24 from 3 to NC State’s 6-of-15. KU was 20-of-29 from 2; NC State 15-of-42 from inside. Forward Ben Middlebrooks drew a lot of fouls from KU’s bigs, scoring 14 points on 4-of-10 shooting. He was 6-of-10 from the line.
“It was kind of a conveyer belt for us out there, especially late first half,” Dickinson said. “I figured every big we had had two fouls. I thought we were going to throw Dillon (Wilhite, walk-on big) out there. Sometimes fouls occur and stuff like that. We always talk about our depth and how deep we are. We trust anybody who goes out there and trust they are able to do their job.”
KU coach Bill Self was impressed with the 6-10 Middlebrooks.
“I thought he was really good today,” Self said. “He had more shimmy, more wiggling in his game (getting open) than what I thought. I thought he did a really good job of hitching and doing some things to get guys off balance to give them angles and stuff like that. I think he’s a good player. “
Overall, Self was pleased with the victory, KU’s eighth in 10 tries. NC State fell to 7-4.
“I thought we were ready to play to start the game,” Self said. KU led early, 15-0 and 19-3.
“I mean, we played really well early and until about the 13 minute mark and we dropped off a little bit after that, but guys were locked in,” Self added. “Did I see anything in practice to lead me to believe we’d play like that? No. Did I feel that we would play much better? Yes, just because of guys probably not being very happy (after dropping two in a row), but we did a good job.”
KU, which enters finals week, will next meet Brown at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 22.
This story was originally published December 14, 2024 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Hunter Dickinson came close to rare KU milestone. He joked he should’ve been closer."
