The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1530730
JANUARY 2025 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 59 BY ANTHONY BROOME W omen's basketball assistant coach Jillian Dunston is cur- rently in her second chapter as a Wol- verine. She joined Kim Barnes Arico's staff ahead of the 2023-24 season after making 138 appearances for the Maize and Blue between 2015-18. The rela- tionship between the two continues to blossom almost a decade after Dun- ston's arrival as an athlete at Michigan. Dunston, a former All-Big Ten Defen- sive Team selection from Silver Spring, Md., is in the record books as playing the fourth-most games in program his- tory and pulling down the fourth-most rebounds (862). She is one of just of five Wolverines who have at least 850 boards during her career in Ann Arbor. The program made four postseason ap- pearances in her time, including a 2017 WNIT title and the second round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament. The interest from Barnes Arico and her staff was one of Dunston's initial courtships from a power conference program, and it laid the foundation for a relationship that continues to grow. "Coach Arico maybe got there my sophomore year of high school," Dun- ston said. "I'd really never heard of the state of Michigan. She hired coach Mel- anie Moore in my sophomore year. We kind of built a relationship from that. They were one of my first Power Five interests, so I was like all right, let me see if I can really play at this level. "But the opportunity ended up be- ing there for me, and that checked all the marks there right away. It was an opportunity. Coach was new. It was a rebuild. So I was, 'I'm all in.' We built that rela- tionship as time went on, but it ended up being the best decision of my life." Following her playing career, Dunston kicked around the idea of jumping into media before homing in on being an as- sistant coach. She spent two seasons at Florida State as a graduate assistant from 2018-20, then three years at Drexel from 2020-23, where the Dragons won 63 games and made the NCAA Tournament in 2022. The WBCA named her to the Thirty Under 30 list twice as one of the top coaches in the game under 30 years old. "Oddly enough, I really didn't want to be a coach," Dunston revealed. "But as time went on and I started to learn about the profession, I thought I could do this. Originally I thought I wanted to be a broadcaster, but as I got to know about the profession, I was like, 'Man, I don't think that's for me.' "I started to learn about coaching and then when I graduated, it was May 2020. It was right into the heart of the pan- demic. So, I said, 'OK, this is where my resources are. This is where I'm con- nected. I think this is the best route to go.' And then now I'm here. "There were a couple of elements involved. It was that I was obviously knowledgeable about the sport. I saw the lifestyle and I saw that was manage- able. I saw the way they impacted the players that I was surrounded by and the ability to impact the sport, give back to the sport. That's what I appreciated about it." B a r n e s A r i c o a n d D u n s t o n stayed in touch, and when the op- portunity to re- turn to Michigan as an assistant emerged, there was no pressure to jump back to her alma ma- ter. After sitting on it for a bit, Dunston thought it was a perfect opportunity. "Coach Arico would call and check on me every so often. At the end of the third year, she checked on me, and I said ❱ WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Jillian Dunston Enjoying Her Second Run With Kim Barnes Arico Dunston, who has been named to the WBCA's Thirty Under 30 list twice as one of the top coaches in the game under 30 years old, joined U-M's staff prior to the 2023-24 campaign. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETICS Dunston on her relationship with head coach Kim Barnes Arico "I appreciate the space that she lets me grow. It's different, but in the best way, it's different because I'm like 10 years older now, so we're not duplicating the same conversa- tions, and it continues to grow day in and day out."