UNLV’s Gonzalez twins are inseparable on and off the court
When they were kids, Dylan and Dakota Gonzalez’s mother, Angie, would try to do things to separate her daughters.
Maybe she’d take one on an errand and leave the other at home. Her fear, the twins say, was that they’d wind up living together as 70-year-olds raising cats and golden retrievers.
To this day, they are rarely found apart — they live together, play basketball together, have the same major, share the same group of friends and have many of the same interests — so it’s surprising to hear their admission that they briefly considered separating for college.
They didn’t, of course, spending a year at Kansas before transferring to UNLV. Now juniors, the twins are two of the team’s top three scorers. Dakota leads the team in minutes played and scoring, averaging 13.8 points per game and 5.4 rebounds, while Dylan is third in scoring at 9.8 points with 4.1 boards per game.
But it’s probably off the court where they provide the most intrigue. They have have created a loyal social media following, befriended celebrities and have a budding musical career.
It’s not uncommon for them to be approached for a picture or an autograph. The recognition has picked up thanks in large part to their Instagram accounts. Dylan, who joined first, has more than 955,000 followers while Dakota has one million.
The twins post a mix of selfies, basketball pictures and anything else that interests them. Teammate Jordyn Bell said their beauty is what gets them followers while their personalities are what keeps them.
“There’s there’s a lot of people on Instagram, a lot of beautiful people a lot of funny people that just (have) something about them that kind of gets people interested in following them and so I would say that a big part of it for us was the fact that we’re twins,” Dakota said. “I think that’s kind of fascinating to people maybe.”
THE TWIN CONNECTION
People on the internet aren’t the only ones fascinated by twins.
They are, too, sometimes even forgetting they are twins themselves and getting excited when they run into other twins.
Dylan, the older twin by 10 minutes, is a fraction of an inch taller, though they’re both listed at 6 feet. Her eyes, they say, are more shaped like M&Ms, while Dakota’s are more “almondy.” Their face structure is slightly different.
Though they’re fraternal, they look nearly identical and Dylan, the risk-taker of the two, often wanted to use that fact to play pranks when they were younger.
Dakota did play along occasionally, one time pretending to be Dylan over FaceTime to a guy Dylan had been talking to for two months.
“I was on the phone and I was like ‘Hey boo,’ and he’s like “Oh girl I’ve missed you,’” and I was like ‘Just kidding it’s Dakota,’” Dakota said.
The boy was embarrassed and Dylan irritated by his inability to recognize who he was talking to.
“If you like both of us, it’s not going to happen. Can’t happen,” Dylan said. “You’ve got to be able to tell us apart. Have to. Prerequisite top 5.”
After all, while the twins look very similar, their personalities are somewhat divergent.
When they first arrived at UNLV and teammates fretted about not being able to tell them apart, Dakota reassured them there was often an easy way to identify them.
“I was like ‘Luckily for you, I change my hair all the time, so that’ll help you out a bit,’” Dakota said. “Once you get to know us and you see how different we are in our personalities, it’s almost like you won’t even believe that you couldn’t tell us apart.”
Coach Kathy Olivier said they are both feisty, hardworking and leaders. They are competitive, she said, sometimes even with each other.
Dylan is more reserved, a little bossier and, by her own estimation, funnier, while Dakota is more bubbly, extroverted and, also by Dylan’s estimation, meaner.
It’s more likely to find Dylan without Dakota than the opposite, Bell said, and Dakota admitted that when Dylan left for two weeks a couple summers ago, she had some separation anxiety.
“I’ve always said it’s kind of like two sides of a magnet,” Dylan said. “If you have two of the same side, you’re not going to click but if it’s one side and then the other, you’re going to bond just great.”
POST-BASKETBALL PURSUIT
Though their personalities are different, they share similar morals, mindsets, core values and goals.
Basketball and school (both sociology majors) and other interests — Dylan, for example, likes writing anime stories, Dakota likes watching Korean dramas — take up a lot of their time right now. But their ultimate goal is to sing after college.
They have a SoundCloud where they share their music. They don’t stick to one specific genre, but Dakota said they’re a “little more R&B based,” and then they pull from other things.
Eventually, they’d like to branch out into the entertainment industry but for now are focused on singing together.
“We love sharing our stories and our experiences through music,” Dakota said. “It’s a universal language so everybody speaks it. For us, that’s really kind of our main objective with music and wherever it takes us, that’s kind of a blessing and a bonus.”
Wherever life does wind up taking them, whether it’s singing, raising golden retrievers or something entirely different, there’s little doubt it’ll take them there together.
“I almost wish that people could experience what it’s like to have a twin and be super close to them because it’s just a totally different kind of relationship and you know it’s like having another you. You literally know that person so well and they know you so well,” Dakota said. “It’s an indescribable relationship.”
Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.
