Adou Thiero joins Kentucky basketball team for next season, a ‘super valuable’ addition
In one of the final moves of this Kentucky basketball offseason, the Wildcats on Sunday added a late-blooming perimeter player with a close connection to John Calipari.
Adou Thiero — a 6-foot-5 combo guard from the Pittsburgh area — announced his commitment to UK following a rash of new recruiting interest and a whirlwind series of visits on the heels of a breakout senior season.
The Kentucky basketball program confirmed Thiero’s signing shortly after in a post on social media.
Thiero, who was not even listed in the national recruiting rankings until last week, will become the third member of Kentucky’s 2022 signing class, joining combo guard Cason Wallace and wing player Chris Livingston, a pair of McDonald’s All-Americans ranked in the top 10 nationally.
The newest Wildcats recruit is more of an under-the-radar pickup.
Thiero averaged 23.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 3.9 steals and 2.3 blocks per game this past season, leading Quaker Valley (Pa.) to a 27-1 record and a spot in the state title game for the first time in 23 years.
Calipari, who grew up less than 10 miles from Thiero’s high school, traveled to his old stomping grounds in March to watch the star senior play for a state championship. Two days later, he was back in the Pittsburgh area for an in-home visit with Thiero and his family. The teenager announced after that meeting that he had received an offer to play for Kentucky.
Thiero’s father is Almamy Thiero, who played for Calipari at Memphis and has stayed in touch with the UK coach in the two decades since. The younger Thiero attended Kentucky basketball camps growing up and has said that UK was his “dream school” as a kid.
This coming season, he’ll be a Wildcat. To what degree he’ll contribute as a freshman remains to be seen. Very little was known about Thiero outside of western Pennsylvania until the tail end of his senior season. He’s the No. 189 overall prospect in the 2022 class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings. That website recently ranked Thiero as the No. 25 overall combo guard for the 2022 cycle.
247Sports analyst Travis Branham, who entered the first Crystal Ball prediction on Thiero’s page last week, following a recruiting visit to Lexington, said the new Wildcat is an “intriguing talent” based on his available game film from this past season.
“It’s hard to say what he’ll be like as a college basketball player, in general. Everybody shoots 100 percent in a highlight reel, so it’s tough to gauge,” Branham told the Herald-Leader. “But you can see the talent’s there. He’s a 6-foot-6ish guard. Moves really well. He’s a good athlete. He’s long. Good ball skills — he appears to be able to create and make shots.
“But it’s really hard to tell what Kentucky will be getting. … Whether he’s a developmental guy you bring in that plays a small role next year, or maybe he’s better than that. Maybe he’s going to be able to contribute more. It’s just very difficult to tell.”
Adou Thiero at Kentucky
Thiero committed to UK after taking official visits last month to Maryland and Xavier, as well as an unofficial visit to nearby Pittsburgh. All of those schools were among the programs that extended scholarship offers late in his senior season, but Thiero’s heart was clearly set on Kentucky, which hosted him for a final official visit last weekend.
His commitment is the latest development in yet another busy Kentucky basketball offseason.
As it stands, Thiero will join a backcourt that features returning point guard Sahvir Wheeler, a possible star in Wallace, and two shooting guards — CJ Fredrick and Antonio Reeves — who have transferred to UK and will make their debuts for the Wildcats this season. Fredrick was a two-year starter at Iowa before coming to Lexington last year, missing all of the 2021-22 season due to injury. Reeves averaged 20.1 points per game at Illinois State this past season and was one of the highest-scoring players in the transfer portal this offseason.
UK is also projected to have a wing group consisting of Livingston and Jacob Toppin, who is testing the NBA Draft waters but expected to return to Lexington for a third season with the Wildcats. All six of those guards and wings should play considerable minutes next season, with Oscar Tshiebwe, Daimion Collins and Lance Ware holding down the frontcourt for the Cats.
The glut of talent, especially in the backcourt, likely will make it difficult for Thiero to carve out a considerable amount of playing time in the early going.
Still, he’s expected to be a valuable part of next season’s roster, and he’s the type of late-blooming prospect who could emerge as a key contributor for the Wildcats down the road.
Particularly at this late stage in the high school recruiting cycle, it’s tough for top programs to bring in talented players capable of making an immediate impact on the team’s success. Even if he plays limited minutes to begin his Kentucky career, Thiero should be a difference-maker for the Cats.
“That’s something that I think kind of flies under the radar, especially with fan bases — is how valuable guys like that are to a program like Kentucky,” Branham said. “To these top-tier programs where you get guys who come in and will be here for multiple years. Having guys who are happy to put that jersey on, who are going to put the work in every single day in practice, challenge the other guys — those guys are super valuable.
“We’ve seen it over the years with guys like Dominique Hawkins, Derek Willis, even EJ Floreal. So any time you get a guy who’s going to be here for a few years, who has the talent level to be able to push guys in practice — there’s a lot of value in the continuity and the culture that they can help develop.”
This story was originally published May 8, 2022 at 12:06 PM.
