KU basketball’s Hunter Dickinson named AP preseason first-team All-American
Kansas senior center Hunter Dickinson, the Big 12’s preseason player of the year, has been named to AP’s preseason All-America men’s basketball team.
Dickinson, a 7-foot-2, 260-pound transfer from Michigan, on Monday was named to the All-America squad with Purdue center Zach Edey, Marquette guard Tyler Kolek, Duke forward Kyle Filipowski and North Carolina forward Armando Bacot.
Edey was the only unanimous pick of the 60-person panel. Filipowski, a sophomore, is the only non-senior in the group.
Dickinson averaged 18.5 points and 9.0 rebounds a game last season for the Wolverines, earning honorable mention All-America honors. He is one of the reasons KU has been accorded a No. 1 ranking in the preseason AP poll.
“I think the thing that you’ll be surprised about Hunter is what a great teammate and how unselfish he is, and certainly he’s loved by his brothers in the locker room,” KU coach Bill Self said at last week’s Big 12 Media Day.
“He is, I would say, the most skilled and most talented offensive player that I’ve had from a center-type standpoint. There’s a lot of things he’s got to get a lot better at defensively and guarding ball screens and protecting the rim or the paint and a lot of other things. He’s got to become much better to become whole. But from a shooting, aggressiveness, passing, playing out of doubles, he probably is as advanced as anybody I’ve ever been around and he is without question the most equipped to have a big year for a first-year player.”
Dickinson is hoping to have a huge senior season at Kansas.
“Coach Self definitely expects a lot from his players. He has high expectations for me, high standards,” Dickinson said. “That along with the pedigree of himself and the rest of the coaching staff and playing in Allen Fieldhouse, playing on the (second) winningest program of all time I think will elevate my game to a new level.”
Dickinson said his new teammates “make it easy on me. Guys like Kevin (McCullar) and Juan (Harris), they are such great cutters, it’s easy to pass when guys are open. They do a good job of that.”
Several players were listed in the AP All-America “others receiving votes” category: Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M; Max Abmas, Texas; Boo Buie, Northwestern; Tyson Walker, Michigan State; Johni Broome, Auburn, 7; Ryan Kalkbrenner, Creighton; Terrence Shannon Jr., Illinois; Boogie Ellis, Southern Cal; Justin Moore, Villanova; Tyrese Proctor, Duke; DaRon Holmes II, Dayton; Tristan de Silva, Colorado; Tolu Smith, Mississippi State; Dillon Jones, Weber State; Jahmir Young, Maryland; Ryan Nembhard, Gonzaga and Tucker DeVries, Drake.
