Ohio State men’s basketball signed its first five-star recruit in 12 years when Anthony Thompson officially joined the Buckeyes on Nov. 12.
Thompson finished ranked as the eighth-best player in the country by 247Sports composite, and he was third-best at small forward.
Head coach Jake Diebler said that Thompson signing with Ohio State is more proof that the basketball program is taking a step forward, and he thinks that with Thompson, it can continue to take steps in the right direction.
“It speaks to where our program is. It speaks to where it’s headed,” Diebler said. “For Anthony, winning matters to him, and player development matters to him. I think he’s got a really bright future.”
Now, Thompson heads into the summer as one of the biggest additions of the offseason for the Buckeyes, which comes with expectations.
The last five-star player to sign with the Buckeyes was D’Angelo Russell in the class of 2014, who played just one season in Columbus, but it was a strong one. With 19.3 points per game t go along with 5.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists, Russell was named a first-team All-American and first-team All-Big Ten, getting drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers with the second overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft.
There are bound to be Buckeye fans hoping to see Thompson accomplish what they saw the last OSU five-star did on the hardwood.
But Diebler believes that the incoming freshman can handle that pressure both due to his hard work and his skillset.
“He’s got maturity and he works really hard,” Diebler said. “He’s got a skillset that translates at every level in basketball, and that’s his ability to shoot. He’s really smart. He’s got to get stronger, he’s got to get better at some things, but being as smart as he is and as mature as he is, and how he works… all of those things make for us all to have expectations.”
However, the head coach also warned fans that if Thompson does get off to a slow start, that can be normal for a freshman, no matter how talented they might be.
“We have to remember he’s a young player early on in the season and that the season is a marathon,” Diebler said. “You saw it with Malaki Branham, a guy who got off to a slow start, but by the second half of the season was an all-league player.”
Branham, who played for Ohio State during the 2021-22 season, joined the Buckeyes as a highly-rated four-star recruit, No. 38 in the 2021 recruiting class.
He ultimately delivered on that potential in Columbus with 13.7 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game, a very solid stat line for a true freshman. However, he did get off to somewhat of a slow start.
It took until his eighth game of the season for him to reach double digits in the scoring column, with 11 points in a win over Penn State on Dec. 5. However, he finally broke through on Jan. 2, 2022, in an overtime win against Nebraska. He finished that game with 35 points and six rebounds, which ended up being his highest-scoring performance in 32 games with the Buckeyes.
From there, Branham scored in the double digits 18 out of his last 22 games in college and in each of his final 11 games, including the postseason. In eight of those games, he scored 20-plus points.
That finish to the season got him into the first round of the 2022 NBA draft, when Branham was selected with the 20th overall pick by the San Antonio Spurs.
That example is not to say that Thompson can’t transition faster. Russell himself didn’t need much time to get used to the college game. He scored 16 points in his OSU debut and put up 32 in his third game, scoring double digits in every game the rest of the season until he was held to nine points in an NCAA Tournament loss to Arizona.
But for Thompson to have a strong year, Diebler said it will take a lot of offseason work.
“This summer and this offseason is going to be really important for him because we’re expecting him to play a major role for us,” Diebler said. “He’s got the personality, characteristics and work ethic to do that.”
“As we’ve seen — and you can look at this program or you can look across the country — there’s a transition period that high-level freshmen go through. I don’t think he’s going to be any different. But, I do think our job as a staff is to help speed that up as best as we can, and to get him ready for November and then really January and beyond.”
