Wisconsin basketball recruiting: UW offers intriguing 2023 wing Asa Thomas

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any major college athletics team, but following it closely as a fan can sometimes be difficult and can often be time consuming. We’ll try and condense all the recruiting news you can use into this bi-weekly (or more often since we are in Uncertain Times and there aren’t actual sports going on) post. It’ll include updates on current commits, including stats from their high school games, as well as news on players the Badgers are still pursuing. Let’s get down to business!

New offer

• Unranked 2023 wing Asa Thomas (Lake Forest, Ill.) out of Lake Forest High School received an offer from Wisconsin on Monday after he took an unofficial visit to Madison. He also has offers from DePaul, Illinois, Marquette, Northwestern, Oklahoma and Virginia Tech. According to a Lake County News-Sun article, he “has been in contact with Cincinnati, Florida, Iowa State, Notre Dame, Purdue and Stanford” and will be visiting the Cyclones later this week.

Thomas stands about 6-foot-6 and weighs 185 pounds and, while he isn’t ranked by either of the major recruiting services yet, he is starting to see his recruitment blow up this summer and after watching his tape you’ll see why.

Thomas has every possible long range shot in his bag. He can hit pull-up threes, threes coming off of screens and spot-up threes. It’s honestly pretty advanced for a player who was just a sophomore in high school. While he doesn’t appear to be a primary initiator on offense, he shows solid playmaking chops and makes the right decisions with the ball. He’s also a competent enough dribbler to grab a rebound and start pushing the ball up floor himself.

On defense, his lanky frame is perfect for getting into passing lanes and disrupting the opposing team’s offense. He isn’t a rim protector by any means but he shows decent instincts down there and could surprise some people with his ability to block shots. He’ll need to gain weight and strength before he can compete in the Big Ten (obviously) but he has a ton of promising traits that you can see turning into a really good player for UW.

Thomas plays his AAU ball for the Illinois Wolves, where freshman Chris Hodges played as well, which is one of Greg Gard’s favorite teams from which to recruit (2022 prospects Jaden Schutt and Braden Huff also play for the Wolves). That probably gives Wisconsin a bit of an “in” with Thomas, but we’ll see how far that goes. The Badgers have now offered three players in the 2023 class, Thomas and big men Owen Freeman and Gus Yalden.