Recruiting Report: Cam Thomas (2020)
While Oak Hill is known to get some of the best players from across the world, they do a great job getting guys in VA and NC that can compete and play at a high level on a national stage. Matt Coleman (Texas), Dave McCormack (Kansas), Keldon Johnson (Kentucky) and Keyontae Johnson (Florida) are among some of the most recent Virginia guys that have had success for the Warriors program.
This year’s best Virginia bred player on the group is sophomore Cam Thomas, who lit up Massanutten for 31 points, 24 of them coming in the second half. Oak Hill has now had three scrimmages on the year, and Thomas has scored 30 in all of them.
It’s something that legendary Head Coach Steve Smith expects from Thomas throughout the season.
“He’s a flat out scorer that can shoot it from three,” Smith said. “Some guys are one dimensional that can do one or the other, but he can do both. He can shoot from deep, he has a great pull-up and intermediate game, he can drive and he can get to the line a lot. We’ll need him to do that a lot for us to be good, he’ll have to score every night and he’ll probably be our leading scorer and we’ll need him to score 22 or so points per game, because I know he’s capable of going for 30 any night.”
On a team stacked with talent, it takes a special scorer for Smith to say that about, but that’s exactly what Thomas does. He’s a naturally gifted scorer that can do it on or off the basketball, can score from all three levels and has terrific footwork and a great understanding of the game.
After a great freshman year at Oscar Smith, Thomas starred on the Nike E16 circuit as a freshman playing up on Boo Williams 16U team. He didn’t play his sophomore season at Smith for personal reasons, but he continued to work out and improve and played on Boo’s 17U EYBL team and was a top 10 scorer on the circuit despite being just a rising junior.
He’s hoping his time at Oak Hill can show that he’s continued to get better and he should be considered among the best in the country.
“I want to show that I’ve gotten better over the past year and that I should be considered one of the best players in the country,” Thomas said. “As far as the team, it’s just to win a national championship and go undefeated, that’s the main goal for everyone.”
Ranked in the top 50 in the country by almost every source, Thomas already holds big time offers from programs such as Florida, Virginia Tech, Oregon, NC State, VCU, Creighton and Wake Forest, among many others. He picked up an offer from Pittsburgh after the game, and said he’s been hearing from them, UNC, Oregon, Ohio State and NC State a lot recently. He says he’ll take a visit to NC State this weekend.
Thomas has lit up the Nike circuits for the past two seasons with Boo Williams.The adjustment from the 757 to Mouth of Wilson will be tough on anyone, let alone a junior in high school, but he says the basketball aspect of everything has helped immensely in the transition.
“I like everything, just to come into a new situation with better players, it makes things easier for me,” he said. “We feed off each other and we all love each other so it’s a great experience.”
As far as playing with all of these good players, it’s made Thomas thinks about the game in different ways, and says he’s improving in numerous ways playing with and against some of the players in the country.
“I have to use my mind a lot more here and see the game from a different perspective playing with all these great players like Cole [Anthony], Kofi [Cockburn] and Chandler [Lawson]. I have to compete on both ends every day and I think it’s really making me a better defender more than anything.”
With all of the talent around him, Thomas should be able to thrive as a scorer with guys to distribute him the basketball and the fact that he’ll be in a lot of one-on-one situations. Expect him to score the basketball at a very high clip throughout the season and see his recruitment continue to pick up with high major programs across the country.