Thomas Kithier commits to Michigan State Spartans

The Spartans are on the board in the 2018 class.

On Thursday, Michigan State scored a commitment from power forward Thomas Kithier

A 6-8 big man out of Dakota High School in Macomb (MI), Kithier becomes the Spartans‘ first commitment in a future class with no current commits in 2017. He's 247 Sports' No. 29 power forward in the country and the fourth overall player in the state of Michigan.

Kithier was drawing a lot of interest from Michigan, enough that they may eventually offer him. Kithier does also hold offers from DePaul, Oakland, Detroit and Rice among others.

ESPN is pretty high on Kithier, ranking him as a four-star prospect and their No. 2 prospect from Michigan. They also have him rated as the fifth-best center in 2018, so it looks like there’s some uncertainty as to what Kithier is as a college prospect.

It's uncommon for a school's first future pledge to come from a class two years away from making it into a college campus, so Tom Izzo and staff must really like what they see in Kithier.

Back on June 18th, Kithier attended a basketball camp in East Lansing. His performance there is what led to Izzo offering him a scholarship.

"Coach Izzo basically said he likes what he's seen out of me," Kithier told mlive.com. "I'm going up there for Team Camp and he wants to show me around the facility and stuff like that. He said I'm a top priority for him and that he really likes my game a lot."

Right now, Kithier is a skilled big man with a nice offensive game around the basket, a solid mid-range game and is active on the boards. As for the rest of his high school career, Kithier knows he has a lot of work to do before being ready for college basketball in 2018.

"I've got to keep working," Kithier said. "If I want to play at a high-major like in the Big Ten or the ACC or whatever, I've got to keep developing my 3-point shot and my ball-handling."