Minnesota Basketball Recruiting: Race Thompson Commits to Indiana, Jarvis Thomas to Announce on Tuesday

The Minnesota Gophers have been pursuing two local power forwards for the 2018 recruiting class. Race Thompson and Jarvis Thomas are both very talented kids with multiple Power 5 offers. Richard Pitino and staff have been targeting both with the intent of only taking one.

This weekend it became public that Thompson, son of Gopher football great Darrell Thompson, has been taking a heavy load of summer classes intending to graduate this summer, reclassifying to the class of 2017 and enrolling this Fall. I first learned of this twist from Ryan James at GopherIllustrated.

With the reclassification that made things dicey for the Gophers to take Thompson’s commitment, if that were to be his choice. There are just no scholarships available for the Gophers in the 2017 class. Leaving the Gopher’s with the option of running off a scholarship player in order to land Thompson, or tell him that they’d love to have him but he’d have to pay his own way for a year. From Ryan James...

With Minnesota not having scholarships open for him Race would of had to pay his way for a year to be a Gopher this fall. This news came to Minnesota in June and they aren't willing to just dump a guy off their team that they have committed to.

This essentially left Iowa State and Indiana as the final two who could still take Thompson. And then the Twitter announcement came.

Thompson chooses Indiana, where Archie Miller is trying to fill out his roster and get that Hoosier ship turned around again. So the Thompson family now has a father who is a Gopher legend, a mother who played volleyball at Iowa, a daughter who played volleyball for Wisconsin, a son who is currently playing JUCO football and now Race who will be attending Indiana. This is a Big Ten legacy family. Best of luck to Race as a Hoosier.

So what comes next for the Gophers?

Jarvis Thomas is making his collegiate announcement on Tuesday evening. It is largely expected that he will choose the Gophers. Much more to come on Jarvis but the short analysis is that he is a very active and athletic power forward who excels defensively and on the offensive glass.

Video highlights from a Howard Pulley game this summer. Thomas is #10 and you should pay particular attention to the 1:19 mark.