Michigan basketball: 'Camp Sanderson' in full swing for five Wolverines
Head strength and conditioning coach Jon Sanderson is Michigan Wolverines basketball’s longest tenured staff member, having worked with the team, along with olympic sports, since 2009. Sanderson has become renowned for holding ‘Camp Sanderson’ each summer, when he works his magic.
Most notably, Sanderson helped develop Nik Stauskas and Caris LeVert in the spring and summer of 2013, before both became breakout stars and Stauskas won the Big Ten Player of the Year Award the following season. Both added weight and strength — the before and after photos were stunning — and their transformations were a model that other players have followed throughout the years.
“All of our guys come back for the summer, but any time we can steal extra weeks during the spring, that’s just more momentum of training time,” Sanderson told Big Ten Network in 2016. “And more time equals more results.”
That’s the philosophy Michigan has heading into the 2022-23 season. The Maize and Blue have five players who stuck around for the full ‘Camp Sanderson’ session — junior center Hunter Dickinson, junior forward Terrance Williams II, sophomore guard Kobe Bufkin, redshirt freshman guard/forward Isaiah Barnes and redshirt freshman forward Will Tschetter.
“All of us that are on campus right now kind of have that feel that [he’s] the reason why we stayed — to get that extra two months of development in with him,” Tschetter, who redshirted and spent a great deal of time with Sanderson last season, said on the Defend The Block podcast. “And really just keep extending it and getting better in that aspect, getting ahead of everyone else. I feel like that was a big reason why I did stay, getting those extra two months with him, for sure.
“It’s been great. I’ve really enjoyed the last two months. I’m trying to put in more time in the classroom and on the court to get better at both aspects.”
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With head coach Juwan Howard and his assistant coaching staff not being able to spend much time working with the players on the court before practice begins Oct. 1, Sanderson gets to be around the athletes more than anybody. It helps that he played high-level college basketball at Ohio State. He relates to the players and knows what will help them on the court.
“I just think Sandman is just a really special person,” Tschetter explained. “He really tries to get to know us on a personal level. He’s not there to just go through the motions and get us better in the weight room. He’s really trying to connect with each and every guy, to really get to know them, and I think that helps him really understand what each person needs individually and how he can make each one of us better. He’s really good at that.
“The progress with how guys are getting better is really shown through how much he invests in every single person.”
He’s a secret weapon on the recruiting trail, too, and his strong reputation was a reason why Dickinson chose Michigan as a 2020 recruit in the first place.
“On the visit, we got to speak with him,” Hunter Dickinson’s brother, Ben Dickinson, told TheWolverine.com in 2021. “I’ve been following Sandman for two, three years now just on Twitter, seeing the different things he would do. I always thought he was really good, and then we got to talk to him, I was like, ‘This guy’s the real deal.’”
As soon as Dickinson decided to forgo the NBA and return for his junior season at Michigan, he was ready to get back to work with Sanderson. The 7-foot-1, 260-pound two-time All-Big Ten honoree is taking spring and summer classes in an attempt to graduate after the 2022-23 academic year.
“[I’m] just trying to work on my body more, just trying to perfect it and sculpt it even more, trying to get ready for another season of Big Ten basketball, because it’s definitely grueling,” Dickinson said on the Defend The Block podcast. “If you don’t take care of your body, it’ll get beaten down and punished for a whole season. Just trying to get that with Sandman every day in there, doing something, whether it’s strength or even stretching and trying to get better with that.”
Tschetter was asked for a real-life example of how Michigan players’ work with Sanderson pays off on the floor, and he pointed to how the Wolverines have limited injuries.
“One thing with Sandman is that he’s not just focused on getting bigger or faster, stronger. He’s really good at injury prevention and what he does with that. We have these days, I.P., which stands for injury prevention, and that really helps us with staying healthy during the season.
“You don’t see as many sprained ankles, tweaked muscles, ligaments, pulled hamstrings. Knock on wood, but that’s one thing that he’s really good at, is making sure that we’re staying healthy throughout the course of the year.”
Jace Howard’s transformation
Michigan junior Jace Howard has had quite the transformation during his time in Ann Arbor. According to a recent Twitter post, Howard joined the Wolverines weighing 206 pounds, and is now up to 225 pounds, which is what he was listed at on the roster last season.
He also shared a before and after photo, halfway through his career:
