Three-Point Play: N'Faly Dante, Daishen Nix, J.T. Thor

There’s nothing too new on five-star N’Faly Dante, but a resolution to his recruitment isn’t far off. Meanwhile, five-star point guard Daishen Nix looks to be ready to start locking in visits and a look at where J.T. Thor fits into the class of 2020.

MORE FROM ERIC BOSSI: Recapping the Fantastic 40 in Las Vegas

2020 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position

2021 Rankings: Rivals150

Is there anything new to report on the current status of 2020 five-star N’Faly Dante and a potential move to 2019? No not really. But, I would look for something to happen in the relatively near future.

Currently a top-10 player in the senior class, it is looking more and more likely that Dante will enroll as a member of the class of 2019 and play this season as a freshman. First, though, he’s got the Nike Skills Academy in Los Angeles this weekend. Within a week, maybe two, we’ll hear an answer as to exactly where he ends up.

As of today, I’m seeing this more and more as two-horse race between Kentucky and Oregon and I’ve logged my FutureCast for Kentucky. However, the Ducks are very much in the thick of it and there are certainly others who feel that the Ducks are the team to beat. Bottom line, he’s still undecided so things can change here over the next few weeks.

Whichever program gets him will be getting an athletic, physically put together low post presence who protects the rim, scores on the block and has really developed his touch over the last year.

This week, five-star point guard Daishen Nix will be in California for the Steph Curry camp. When he finishes a few days of working with one of the NBA’s best players, the top-15 ranked senior will be done with his summer basketball and should be ready to take the next step in his recruitment.

Here’s what we know so far. Nix has agreed to take official visits to Kansas and UCLA (look for dates to be finalized after Curry camp) and he has already been to Maryland officially, so those three are certainly deep in the mix. Alabama, Kentucky, Marquette and Washington are among the others that are jockeying for position while Duke and Virginia have also been in recent touch.

I had the chance to watch Nix play a few more times over the weekend at the Fantastic 40 and I’m as sold as ever that we’ve made the right call with his lofty ranking. I know there are some out there who question what he does because he didn’t play on one of the shoe company circuits and didn’t have a monster outing at USA Basketball a few weeks ago. But I’ve been watching what he does in a team environment, how he makes players better and his potential as a defender on top of what he does offensively and I think his strengths ultimately translate to the highest level.

Over the weekend, the news came out that power forward J.T. Thor would transfer from Huntington (W.V.) Prep to Norcross (Ga.) High and that he would now graduate with his original class, 2020. So, we have to move him out of the 2021 rankings and find a home for him in 2020 and it wasn’t exactly easy to do.

Thor had been ranked No. 11 overall in 2021 and had been considered a five-star prospect. Much of that ranking was on potential and having two more years of high school to overcome some inconsistency and get stronger. However, Thor hadn’t always played like a five-star when we saw him during the summer and was going to be moved out of five-star status in our next 2021 update. So, it’s hard to move him over as a five-star in 2020.

After looking at the current lists and gauging where Thor might compare in the 2020 class, we’ve locked him in at No. 53. Yes, it’s a pretty conservative number on the switch. But, Thor was already going to slide some in 2021 and much of his ranking was based on having two more years of high school. So his time to develop has been cut in half and it’s hard to move him into the class of 2020 over guys like the two directly in front of him – Lance Ware and Mark Williams – who we believe are more complete players at this point.

Will that rankings switch prove to be a bit too low, too high or just right? We’ll see how that all shakes out, but regardless of his rankings number the athletic four man is in good shape with programs like Auburn, Arizona, Clemson, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Miami, Mississippi State, N.C. State, Oklahoma State, UCLA and many others in the mix.