Jun. 17—Indiana State’s men’s basketball program has another addition to its legion of guards being assembled by head coach Josh Schertz.
On Wednesday night, Northwest Florida State guard Micah Thomas signaled his intention to join the Sycamores. He made the announcement on his social media accounts.
Thomas is a 6-foot point guard and he led Northwest Florida in several statistical categories in 2021. Thomas led the Raiders in scoring at 13.5 points and assists at 3.5. The Oklahoma City native also snared 3.5 rebounds.
Thomas converted 44.6% of his field goals, including 34.7% of his 3-point attempts, and made an impressive 86.3% of his free throw attempts. He also had an assist-to-turnover ratio of plus-1.8. Thomas was on the All-Panhandle Conference first team.
Thomas played one season at Northwest Florida and will have four seasons of eligibility with the Sycamores given the eligibility rules put in place this season. Recently, Thomas reported on his own social media that offers also came from Louisiana-Monroe and UTEP.
Thomas has something in common with recently departed ISU forward Jake LaRavia. When Thomas was at Putnam City North High School in 2019, he committed to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville. When SIU-E changed coaches, Thomas pulled out of his commitment. LaRavia, also committed to SIU-E at the time for the same reason.
According to Verbalcommits.com, Thomas was also sought by Texas State, UAB, Kent State, Tulsa and fellow MVC member Missouri State coming out of high school. Thomas was part of an Oklahoma Class 6A state championship team at Putnam City North in 2018.
Thomas joins a crowded group of guards on ISU’s roster — 10 in all. Tyreke Key, Cooper Neese, Julian Larry and Sam Mervis all return from the 2021 team. Xavier Bledson and Cam Henry came with Schertz from Lincoln Memorial. Quimari Peterson and Cam Crawford are true freshman signed out of Gary and Hoover, Ala., respectively. Thomas joins Zach Hobbs as a JUCO addition to ISU’s roster.
The large amount of guards ties into the kind of offense Schertz will run at ISU. At Lincoln Memorial, Schertz’s teams often played four guards on the perimeter and worked the offense off cutting action that creates driving lanes and open shots for shooters when their defenders are drawn away.