Kansas Star Hunter Dickinson Is Embracing His Final Hurrah in the NCAA Tournament

Kansas Jayhawks fifth-year senior center Hunter Dickinson has accomplished plenty in his college career.

He's been named first-team all-conference four times—twice at Michigan and two more times at Kansas. He's also been named as a consensus All-American three times—twice as a second-team selection (2021 and 2024) and once as a third-team selection (this season).

But despite all of his individual success, there's still unfinished business for Dickinson as he enters his final NCAA tournament as a college athlete.

He's never made a Final Four. His closest call was a two-point loss to UCLA in the Elite Eight in his freshman season at Michigan in 2020-21. Needless to say, Dickinson wants to make the most of his final tournament opportunity.

"I'm super grateful I was able to get back here one more time before the end of my career," Dickinson told Sports Illustrated on Wednesday as he promoted his March Madness partnership with Sports Clips.

"I'm really fortunate to be able to play in this tournament. The craziest time in sports is that month of March Madness to where...what other sport can you have a 16-seed beat a 1-seed? So I'm super excited to play in it. I know it's my last one, so I'm going to try to leave it all out on the floor, no regrets."

The Jayhawks began this basketball season as the No. 1 team in the AP poll, with a roster that many expected would compete for a national championship. With Dickinson—one of the best big men in the sport, averaging 17.6 points and 10.0 rebounds per game—as an anchor alongside senior guards Zeke Mayo and Dajuan Harris, the Jayhawks appeared as ready to compete as anybody in college basketball on paper.

But games aren't played on paper.

The Jayhawks finished the regular season 21-12 overall, 11-9 in the Big 12, and unranked for the first time in four years. A mediocre 4-4 in conference play in the month of February sunk Kansas to the 7-seed line in the NCAA tournament, a far cry from the national title contender that many expected the program to be.

Entering Thursday night's Round of 64 contest against the 10-seed Arkansas Razorbacks, Dickinson believes the Jayhawks have an opportunity to make some noise with dampened expectations.

"I definitely think we're flying under the radar," Dickinson said. "I feel like normally a Kansas team is talked about with high expectations to win it all. I feel like a lot of people have us losing to Arkansas. I haven't seen too many people pick us in that game, and probably rightfully so. We haven't really shown that we're capable of executing and performing when the odds are the highest. But I'd also say, when you look at our resume and some of the wins that we've had, it's against some of the best teams in the country...some 1-seeds, some 2-seeds. It gives us the confidence to know that we can play with anybody."

There's no question that Kansas can play with anybody. The Jayhawks have picked off Duke, Michigan State, Arizona and Iowa State at points throughout the season.

But they've also lost to a bad Kansas State team, a mediocre Utah, and were incredibly non-competitive in a late-February contest against BYU. The Cougars are a tournament team, but the 91-57 loss on Feb. 18 was the worst-loss in Kansas history as a ranked team facing an unranked opponent. It was also just the second time that that Kansas has lost by 30 or more points in the Bill Self era.

Kansas' fight for consistency will tell the tale of whether or not they will be able to salvage their season in Dickinson's final run with the program, which begins on Thursday night against John Calipari and Arkansas.

Dickinson knows how important it is to start things off on the right foot against the Razorbacks if the Jayhawks want to make a run.

"I think [Thursday will] be a really good matchup for us because they're a team that's been a little bit up-and-down just like us. It'll be a test of who's going to be more consistent for 40 minutes."

Being consistent could make-or-break Dickinson's final shot at capping off his career with a deep tournament run.