For one night, Michigan's Hunter Dickinson must put aside friendship with Iowa's Luka Garza

Hunter Dickinson was in eighth grade when he met Luka Garza.

At the time, both players were part of Team Takeover, a prominent AAU team based in Washington DC. Garza played for the 17-and-under team, and Dickinson's team would practice against Garza's a couple times a week.

All eyes will be upon the two former Team Takeover centers Thursday night, when No. 3 Michigan basketball hosts No. 12 Iowa.

Dickinson, a seven-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week, has emerged as one of the top young centers in the nation and just led the Wolverines to a top 5 road win at Ohio State on Sunday.

[ Why Chaundee Brown has been a perfect match with Michigan basketball ]

Garza is averaging 24.7 points in his senior season, and is a top contender to be named Naismith College Player of the Year.

“I’ve known him for a while,” Garza told reporters Tuesday. “We’ve always worked out with each other and battled. And played in practice and stuff like that. It’s really impressive to see what he’s done so far, I think anybody from the DMV would’ve told you that that would happen. He’s been very elite for a while.”

The years-long friendship between Dickinson and Garza strengthened last summer when the two worked out together in Maryland under the purview of their AAU coach Keith Stevens. The duo, sometimes joined by former Maryland star Jalen Smith, worked on their post moves and spent plenty of time matching up in 1-on-1s.

What impact might that familiarity have upon Thursday's game?

Garza acknowledged at this point, each player knows the other “pretty well” based on how frequently they have faced off. Dickinson believes he still hasn't “encountered what (Garza) really does in the Big Ten.” The experiences he has had against Garza will be supplementary to what he learns from film study — and not the sole basis for how he chooses to defend his old friend Thursday.

“I’m still trying to learn from the film that we have and stuff,” Dickinson said Wednesday. “I still wouldn’t say that I’m an expert on what he does yet.”

[ Charting out Michigan basketball's potential paths to the Big Ten title ]

Like Dickinson, the Wolverines understand how difficult it is to slow down Garza. In the two meetings between the teams last season, Garza averaged 38.5 points on 54% shooting and took 13 free throws in each contest. His 44 points at Michigan on Jan. 12, 2020 were the most scored by a visiting player in the 53-year history of Crisler Center.

“My recollection is that we didn't play any defense against Luka Garza,” said assistant coach Phil Martelli. “... Just how hard he works, how creative he is with his footwork and both games, to me, were unusual for college basketball because I can remember the free-flowing nature of the game, the scoring that took place by both teams.”

Garza has upped his game as a senior. He is the focal point of Iowa's offense and has become more efficient. He has a career-low turnover rate, is shooting 58.7% on 2s and 44.4% on 3s and drawing a career-best 7.1 fouls per 40 minutes, attempting just over seven free throws per game.

That latter mark will test the defense of Dickinson, who has committed 3.4 fouls per 40 minutes and is averaging three fouls over the past four games — but has rarely found himself in early foul trouble, if at all.

“I think something that he does really well is to use his body,” Dickinson said. “He’s got a big frame that he throws around really well. He’s really good at using angles if you give him any type of angle to get it off the backboard or something like that, he’s really good at ‘whatever the defender does is wrong’ type mentality.”

Michigan will need Dickinson to avoid foul trouble. It will need him to play, at the very least, adequate 1-on-1 defense so other defenders won't have to help off Iowa's shooters (the Hawkeyes are shooting 40.3% from 3). It will need Dickinson to continue playing well on offense so the Wolverines can attack Iowa's 75th-ranked defense.

And to accomplish all of those things, Michigan will need Dickinson to forget about his friendship with Garza for at least a few hours.

“The only thing I’m going to whisper to him tomorrow is you’ve just gotta put the friendship aside here,” Martelli said. “And you’re not the youngster. He can’t go in and accept that as any kind of built-in excuse. All the notoriety, all the accolades, he’s handled it. And now he has to handle the idea that this is not Hunter against Garza, this is Michigan against Iowa.

“I’m confident that Hunter will not cross into another world and it will impact his game in making it a personal rivalry.”

So is Dickinson.

“I really don’t think that’ll be an issue,” he said. “It’s not the first time that I’ve played one of my friends before. I used to play Terrance (Williams) two or three times a year in the (Washington Catholic Athletic Conference). I’ve played against good friends all my life, so I don’t think this will be any different.”

Contact Orion Sang at osang@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @orion_sang. Read more on the Michigan Wolverines and sign up for our Wolverines newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan's Hunter Dickinson must put aside friendship with Luka Garza