Thursday night, Class of 2020 KU target Bryce Thompson released his first official list of finalists and the Jayhawks made the cut as one of his seven programs still standing.
Thompson, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound shooting guard from Booker T. Washington High in Tulsa, Okla., is ranked 18th nationally by Rivals.com and is a five-star prospect who absolutely blew up this summer.
Kansas coach Bill Self and his staff have long treated Thompson as one of their top priorities in the 2020 class. But after another stellar summer in which he showed off his versatility, smooth scoring ability and ever-expanding athleticism, Thompson both jumped in the Rivals rankings and began to draw interest from more of the top programs in college basketball.
Those programs still in the running for Thompson are: in-state schools Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, perennial powers North Carolina and Michigan State and far-but-not-too-far programs Arkansas and Texas.
According to Rivals.com’s Corey Evans, Texas Tech may still be in the mix, as well. But the graphic that Thompson Tweeted out on Thursday night only featured those previous six and Kansas.
Although a date for Thompson’s final decision remains in the distance, the dynamic scorer has started to sort out his official visits and will get things started this weekend in Austin, Texas.
After that, Thompson will head to UNC the weekend of Sept. 6 — according to Evans, he’ll be the Tar Heels’ only official visitor at that time — and follow that up with a visit to Kansas on Oct. 4 (in time for Late Night) and a trip to Michigan State on Oct. 25, when the Spartans host their own version of Late Night.
Those dates, as long as they hold, would leave Thompson with the option of taking one more official visit to either OU, OSU or Arkansas.
Evans reported that Thompson and his family would like to have all of the official visits wrapped up by November and while that certainly suggests that a decision could be coming in time for the early signing period, which opens Nov. 13 and runs through Nov. 20, no one in Thompson’s camp has publicly said that he will sign early.
