AMHERST – Dyondre Dominguez closes his eyes at the free throw line and time travels. He leaves the Mullins Center and thinks about his family and everything that brought him to that point.

“It sends me down back to where I was, and I think about how far I’ve come,” Dominguez said. “I’m proud of myself, really.”

He should be. Dominguez grew up with a single father who learned the best way to raise him as it was happening. The junior forward from Providence, Rhode Island, struggled with ADHD and other learning disabilities. His first few years at UMass showed flashes, but now he’s displaying the full range of talents that put him on Power Five radars.

“He’s coming into his own now. He’s a lot more mature. He’s not getting into dumb stuff anymore. I think he cares now that he’s in this environment,” said Jose Dominguez, Dyondre’s father. “This is where I wanted him when he first went to UMass.”

Jose always had a vision for Dyondre. He saw his son’s potential and drive early and nurtured it. Dyondre moved in with Jose when he was eight. His mother was “struggling,” Jose said, and he lost his health insurance. They couldn’t afford his medications.

At the time, Jose couldn’t really afford to take Dyondre in either. He was freshly out of federal prison after a nine-year drug sentence in 2009.

“I wasn’t going to let him go down my path at all,” Jose said.

He held Dyondre accountable. When his grades slipped, he got in trouble at school or was “acting like a clown on the basketball court,” Jose took away his phone and Xbox.

“I think about it now like damn, I was hard on him,” Jose said. “It’s because my dad didn’t hold me accountable. I didn’t want him to fall into the same dumb stuff I used to fall into. The structure was high. It was the hardest job of my life being a single parent.”

Jose sometimes didn’t understand why it was so hard. Dyondre forgot things all the time. He couldn’t focus and bounced around. Managing a gym at the time, Jose met a lot of people. A doctor told him, “Jose, your son’s condition is like a Ferrari with bicycle breaks. That’s how his mind is. It’s hard.”

“I used to think my son was being disrespectful. I didn’t get it. I would yell and punish him until I started asking questions,” Jose said. “I never understood how hard it was for him.”

Dyondre noticed. His father always told him he couldn’t have a basketball career if he did poorly in school. Jose encouraged him to seek help in class so he could pass through and apply those same lessons on the court.

“That’s the reason why I pushed more,” Dyondre said. “I saw how much time he was putting in to help me become the person I am right now.”

He wouldn’t be on a Division I basketball team without his dad. Dyondre played football when he first moved in with Jose. He played in a league with his now UMass teammate Matt Cross. One day Cross’ dad called Jose and told him Matt broke his leg.

Jose backed Dyondre off football. The father, who did not attend college, played basketball in high school at Framingham and still regularly participates in men’s leagues and pickup games. Bringing Dyondre, who was tall even then, to his games served as both childcare and induction. Basketball became his number one priority.

AAU basketball enthralled him. Dyondre loved traveling to Virginia, Georgia and others with the Expressions Elite program. Staying in hotels and playing in front of scouts made him feel like a pro.

“Obviously not getting paid. You’re doing that and looking at the future in a way. If I keep doing well at this, what’s the best that can happen?” Dyondre said. “My dad emphasized becoming a pro, providing for your family. That’s what I wanted to do.”

He enrolled at New Hampton School, a prep school in New Hampshire which has produced multiple NBA players. Programs like Texas, Ole Miss and Penn State eyed him. Dyondre represented Puerto Rico, his father’s parents’ homeland, at the FIBA U18 Americas Championship and the U19 World Cup. His best games always came against the United States, the best competition.

“Any time he plays against great talent, something gets in him,” Jose said.

Dyondre faced some of the top high school talent in the country during his two years at New Hampton. The Huskies regularly clashed with national powers like Brewster Academy and Northfield Mount Hermon School. Ultimately it wasn’t the right fit, though.

“He got kicked out. It wasn’t nothing big. Something really stupid, but the weekend Texas, Ole Miss and all these schools are supposed to see him play, he was home with me because he got kicked out,” Jose said. “As a parent you’re so disappointed.”

The big names stopped calling. Jose searched for another school where he could finish his high school tenure, wondering if Dyondre had blown his chance at a career. Former UMass assistant Tony Bergeron, then the head coach at Woodstock Academy in Connecticut, reached out. He knew what happened at New Hampton but didn’t care.

Dyondre eventually joined the migration of talent from Woodstock to UMass as part of its 2020 signing class along with two Woodstock teammates, Cairo McCrory and Ronnie Degray III (both of whom transferred out after last season), and incoming transfer Noah Fernandes, who he played with at Woodstock.

Without the structure he was accustomed to, Dyondre struggled for playing time early in his UMass career.

“Last year, I heard Matt (McCall) told the kids ‘you guys work out on your own.’ My kid kind of took two years off. Being a kid, you’re home, there’s structure, a lot of structure, and you go to college and you can do anything you want,” Jose said. “UMass is known for partying. What’s a kid going to do when he’s not playing? I get it.”

They thought about transferring after last season. Confidants cautioned patience. See who comes.

Frank Martin entering the picture changed everything.

“I knew from people telling me Frank’s the right guy for him. I don’t know he’s going to want him, but Frank’s the right guy. He is. My son needs that,” Jose said. “Frank was the perfect fit. I tell him things happen for a reason, maybe this is it.”

Martin introduced Dyondre to UMass sports performance coach Tony Regueira, and they retreated to the weight room with a mandate to get stronger and bigger to play a new role. Putting on weight has always been a problem for Dyondre. He’s always been skinny, even when working out at the gym Jose managed. This was an opportunity to attack his physique with renewed intensity.

“Coach Frank really tried to push me hard enough to the point where I’m going to be exhausted,” Dyondre said. “Push yourself to another limit you didn’t think you could reach. When he said that, I was like, ‘yeah I haven’t really done that in the three years since I’ve been here.’”

Dyondre put on nearly 20 pounds of muscle in the offseason. Jose noticed before he did. The change didn’t become real until he saw it on a scale. He went up a clothing size and tried on a new position. Dyondre’s playing more in the post this season after spending most of his time as a “shooty” wing, he called it.

“I wasn’t looking to get in there the past couple years,” Dyondre said. “You don’t want to be a one-trick pony. You want to be someone who affects the area in so many different ways. That’s what Frank taught me a lot, not to worry about one thing in the game. Worry about the whole big picture. Not just for yourself, for everyone.”

He realized his most impactful role was a live wire. Dyondre summons energy from within and disperses it throughout the team whenever he comes off the bench.

“We lack energy sometimes. Or when we depend on one person to have energy every day, it’s not impossible, but it’s just draining,” he said. “That’s my role when I come into the game, bring energy to everyone. Make sure they’re alive.”

Dyondre’s averaging career highs in points (8.8 per game), shooting percentage (61.2), 3-point percentage (37.0), and he already has more assists and steals than his entire career before this season. His example has caught up with his voice.

“It’s a huge impact because not everybody has that in them. Not everybody, you know, could be a leader,” Matt Cross said.

Martin’s impact extends beyond the baseline, too. He talks often with Dyondre about how to be a successful man, not just an impactful basketball player.

“The ball’s going to stop dribbling at some point in time. You have to think of your next step,” Dyondre said. “Not everything’s going to go your way. You’re not going to get everything you want in life if you don’t work for it. If you don’t work, you’re going to get fired or be thrown away some type of way. In order to keep that you have to continue to work and work and work and get better.”

Once he stops playing organized basketball, Dyondre wants to help kids with learning disabilities like he had and show them the path he walked. He doesn’t want them to see themselves as different.

“They don’t get the same amount of fair chances,” Dyondre said. “I want to help them fight through. I got a lot of help. It wasn’t always easy. I respect everyone that helped me.”

Jose sits high on the list. They’re closer now than when they lived together. Dyondre can see the benefit of the structure in hindsight.

“I’m definitely proud,” Jose said. “I hope he keeps maturing because it’s showing on the basketball court.”

]]>