Recruiting - the significance of getting Thompson

I was updating the origin post in the recruiting thread and realized that recent events have really made Thompson's commitment even more important.

I started this recruiting season thinking that we would see big strides from Silvio this year, to the point that he and Devon would be NBA Draft Early Entrants after this season. Silvio may still make those strides -- I certainly hope he does -- but we haven't seen the great play we were hoping for yet, so I'm starting to lean toward his staying for his senior year, especially since he really seems to be enjoying the experience at KU. I have not yet changed the recruiting OP to reflect this train of thought, but for the purpose of this post I am going to consider Silvio to be staying.

I also thought that Mitch would not redshirt, but he has, and Self has said that the injury to Jalen Wilson will not push Self to bring Mitch back. Mitch is a Big and JW a Small, so why bring Mitch back -- unless it became a question of needing the bodies? Right now (and hopefully later) KU does not. Self has 9 scholarship players he can play, and that should be more than enough.

Allowing for those adjustments to the projected returning players, KU would see 9 scholarship returnees, leaving just 4 rides available for this recruiting class.

With the early signing period starting tomorrow, three of those four rides should be spoken for by the end of this week. That would leave just 1 "practically for sure" available ride, assuming Dotson leaves and Silvio stays.

Self had two solid 4* recruits in C Muscadin and F Grant-Foster to get the 2020 recruiting class started, but more and more folks were thinking that he would whiff on the 5* players KU was after, giving him two years in a row without a 5* in the recruiting class. Landing CG Thompson went against that expectation, and might be enough of a boost to bring in another high ranking player for what may be the last opening.

But most of the still undecided US HS 5 stars have not displayed much of an interest in KU, almost surely because of the NCAA NOA. The one Rivals 5* left that does seem to be in the mix for KU is Canadian CG Karim Mane, who would be a great get.

And as I noted in the recruiting thread earlier today, Uruguayan PG Santiago Vescovi has been garnering a lot of attention with the NBA Global Academy, so he might be a possibility as well.

In the meantime the addition of Thompson to the class has leapfrogged KU in the recruiting class rankings. KU is now the #8 class for Rivals and the #11 class for 247Sports. ESPN only shows the top 15 and KU is not shown there, but I'm not sure if they count the JUCO (KU's Grant-Foster) in with the HS recruits in determining recruiting class strength, as both Rivals and 247Sports are doing this year.

With the possibility that there may be just one more scholarship to award... I'm liking Thompson's decision more and more. Here's hoping his decision can help KU land at least one more great recruit for 2020!