The NCAA Transfer portal has been filling with college basketball players over the last few days but few have been bigger than Michigan center Hunter Dickinson. Jeff Goodman of Stadium reported the news on Friday afternoon.
The consensus All-American originally out of Alexandria, Virginia, and DeMatha Catholic High School was a three-time All-Big Ten selection while with the Wolverines. The 7-foot-1-inch center averaged 18.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 1.5 assists this season.
For his career, he’s played in 94 games, averaging 17.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 1.6 assists while shooting 57% from the floor. He’s also a strong career shooter from deep despite being 7-foot-1, hitting 36% of his three-point attempts in his career.
The dominant big man will be a hot commodity in the transfer portal now that he has entered and quite a few schools would make sense for Dickinson.
As a DMV native, Georgetown immediately comes to mind as a potential landing spot. Georgetown is just a 20-minute drive from his hometown of Alexandria and with Ed Cooley taking over the program, the Hoyas are looking to make a big splash and begin what they hope to be a quick rebuild. Dickinson would be quite the big splash if he were to pick the Hoyas.
Another school that makes sense when considering his native Alexandria but also his alma mater in DeMatha Catholic is the Maryland Terrapins. College Park where the University of Maryland is located is just three miles down the road from DeMatha Catholic. Dickinson will already be highly familiar with the Terrapins program thanks to the distance.
If he is returning home, Virginia and Virginia Tech would both make sense as well. When looking outside the DMV area, other programs that could make sense for Dickinson include the Purdue Boilermakers who will have to replace Zach Edey, Could the Boilermakers success with Edey entice Dickinson?
That beings said, as one of the best players in the portal, Dickinson will surely be enticed by a multitude of high end programs with NIL deals and in reality everyone in college basketball will be looking to land the 7-foot-1 center. Coming out of high school, Dickinson notably took official visits to Duke, Notre Dame, and Florida State outside his official visit to Michigan. Other programs that recruited him at the time included Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Louisville, North Carolina, South Carolina, USC, Wake Forest, Kansas, and Xavier.
Out of those programs above, four have seen complete coaching staff changes in Notre Dame, South Carolina, Wake Forest, and Xavier. Two have seen head coaching changes in Duke and North Carolina, however, both hires in Jon Scheyer and Hubert Davis respectively were with their programs during his original recruitment.
Overall, Dickinson’s entry into the transfer portal on Friday afternoon is a seismic one and will be one of the most watched transfer portal recruitments this spring.
On the other hand, the departure of Dickinson is a huge blow to the Wolverines who will now have to replace him and guard Jett Howard, their second leading scorer this past season. The Wolverines in Juwan Howard’s fourth season went 18-16 including 11-9 in Big Ten play and missed the NCAA Tournament.