Purdue Basketball Recruiting: Isaiah Thompson Sets Career High

It pains me to write this as a diehard Kokomo Wildkat, but tonight in Zionsville the little brother of P.J. Thompson did his best to singlehandedly beat my beloved Wildkats. Kokomo entered tonight’s game missing two starters due to injury. Zionsville was undefeated and ranked 7th in Class 4A here in Indiana. It looked like a mismatch, but Kokomo was able to hang tough and stay within about 5 points for most of the game.

It didn’t matter though, because Isaiah Thompson went nuts.

Before the game Isaiah was feted for reaching the 1,000 point plateau for his career back on December 9th. Tonight he made a nice dent in his next thousand. He went for a career high 40 as Zionsville beat Kokomo 70-56.

I have seen Isaiah quite a bit over the last few years and this is the best game I have seen him play. He scored ina variety of ways tonight. He connected on five threes, many of them from about 25 feet. He drove to the basket and scored. He scored off of rebounds. He was 11 of 12 at the free throw line. All told he was 12 of 21 from the floor, 5 of 10 from three, and he added 3 rebounds and 3 assists.

My biggest concern for him at the next level is his size. He is listed at 6’ 155 pounds, but he is more of a scorer than a distributor. He also is not the same type of pure scorer that Carsen Edwards is. He is rail thin, and coach Shaun Busick at Zionsville commented tonight that he is doing all he can to put on weight for the next level.

I trust coach Painter though. Isaiah has a unique connection because of PJ that he can know everyone before playing a single minute at Purdue. I can see the same dedication and work ethic that PJ has in him.

Other Commitments

Eric Hunter - Hunter balled out today. His Indianapolis Tindley team is ranked second in Class A and he had a huge game against Ft. Wayne Snider in Marion today. He was 15 of 22 from the floor for 42 points and was 5 of 8 from deep in a 76-67 win. His former HS coach, Bob Wonnell, is in his first year at Kokomo this year after coaching Tindley and Hunter to a Class A state tile last season. He said that Eric was a joy to coach, very unslefsh, and never upset if one of his teammates was the hot hand for a night. He said he did not know if Eric would start next season, but he felt he would be a solid contributor from day 1. Sure, it is a biased opinion, but it is good to hear no less.

Trevion Williams - Just going to drop this:

That was a few days ago, but holy shit! It was nearly a quintuple nickel! How do you even get 36 rebounds in a game? In the Kokomo-Zionsville game I was at tonight Kokomo had 28 team rebounds and Ziosnville had 24 team rebounds. 36 from one player is fucking absurd.