Kansas basketball: Comments by Hunter Dickinson upset Michigan fans

Hunter Dickinson has quickly become renowned in Kansas basketball, but recent criticisms of his time at Michigan have upset the Wolverine fanbase.

Hunter Dickinson is arguably the best college basketball player to ever enter the transfer portal. He’s the reason the Kansas Jayhawks are projected to begin the year as the nation’s No. 1 team. In 2022-23, he averaged 18.5 points and 9 rebounds per game after earning Consensus All-American Second Team honors the year before.

The Virginia native had always been a trash talker during his time with the Michigan Wolverines. Although any school would love to have him, it’s understandable why rivals would have a profound disliking for him. Now, fans in Ann Arbor are starting to get a taste of what it is like to not have Dickinson on their team.

He has made several appearances on KU podcasts, such as The Jayhawker with former Kansas star Wayne Simien and Rock Chalk Unplugged with Mitch Lightfoot and Chris Teahan. As we could expect from Dickinson, he didn’t shy away from any of their questions. In fact, some of his comments have made the U of M faithful resentful toward him.

In a sit-down with Lightfoot and Teahan last week, Dickinson praised the love he’s received thus far on the Kansas University campus — but at the expense of the Wolverines.

“I feel like at Michigan, they weren’t as nice. They were nice people but not as nice. I feel like Michigan is like a fake Midwest. Kansas is actually a Midwest town. I loved my time in Michigan, but the people here at Kansas are especially nice.”

READ: Kansas offers Australian prospect Johnny Furphy

While there is nothing inherently wrong with that statement, Michigan fans didn’t like it one bit.
“Can he just shut up for once? You moved on from Michigan. Just stop,” commented Twitter user @kdime15.

They didn’t stop there. @cynmdmi commented, “Awww! Poor baby! It must be hard to go off to college & not have everyone coddle you like they did in your high school, because you were good in sports. Seriously…time to adult, Hunter.”

Here are some more negative tweets about the superstar center.

That’s not where his criticism ended on the podcast, though. Dickinson downplayed the tactics of U of M’s head coach Juwan Howard, stating that his practices were not challenging enough.

“I’d say they were definitely harder than Michigan, especially at this point. I mean, Michigan — wouldn’t even get the campus to like to July 1. So had way more of a head start here,” Dickinson said. “But I remember the first couple of practices, I was so out of shape and I felt like coming in I was in pretty solid shape, but no, I needed a lot more growth in that area.”

Back in May, Dickinson revealed on his show “Roundball Podcast” how much Michigan paid him in NIL benefits. “The people hating on me would leave their job right now for a $10,000 increase,” he claimed. “I got, at Michigan, less than six figures. I got less than six figures at Michigan for the year.”

“I still love the school and everything. I love the program. That’s why it was so hard to leave because I really didn’t want to leave, I didn’t. But I just felt like, man, it was the best decision for me. It took a lot of courage. I don’t think people realize how much courage it took for a guy who was there for three years, an All-American for the team. I did have a legacy there and I basically gave that up to try to be selfish and do what’s best for me and my career, not what’s best for anybody else’s career.”

You can read more on the comments above by clicking here.

It goes without saying that Dickinson is embracing the villain role quite well. He’s become of of the most hated Kansas basketball players ever — all before even competing in Allen Fieldhouse.

Follow @ThroughThePhog on Twitter and like our page @throughthephog on Facebook for more Kansas basketball coverage.