Today former Bearcat volleyball star Jordan Thompson was selected along with 11 other volleyball players from across the country to represent team USA at the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan in late July. Jordan Thompson played a big role for the Bearcats volleyball program in her time at Cincinnati. In Thompson’s five years at Cincinnati she did tremendous things for not only the program of Cincinnati Volleyball, but for the University of Cincinnati as well. Thompson will be the 17th Bearcat to make an Olympic roster, but will be the first Bearcat volleyball player to every compete in the Olympics. If you didn’t follow Thompson in her time at Cincinnati here is what she kind of player she is as she had an outstanding career, where she started to put Cincinnati volleyball on the map. Below is a breakdown of what kind of player Thompson is and why her making the Olympic team is very special for the Bearcats volleyball program.
Thompson’s freshman season started at Cincinnati in 2015 where the Edina, Minnesota native was drawing attention ever since she stepped onto campus in Clifton. Thompson wasn’t making it hard to see how talented of a player she actually was early on in her Bearcat career. She made an instant impact right away for the Bearcats on the outside where she gave a lot of opposing teams defenses some trouble as Thompson always had an answer to what the defenses where giving her. After an impressive freshman season Thompson earned a lot of recognition across the AAC where she was named AAC Freshman of the Year, unanimously selected to the First Team All-AAC, Thompson also etched her name into school history where she became second in program history in the all time freshman kills list where she recorded 459 kills her freshman season. The best part about Thompson’s freshman year is she actually got the opportunity to play for the USA National Collegiate Team in summer 2016 where she and the national team got to play in China for a few matches, which wouldn’t be Thompson’s last Journey for team USA.
In 2016, during Thompson’s sophomore season she became the first player in AAC history to be selected as an Unanimous Player of the Year. That wasn’t the only milestone Thompson reached during her sophomore campaign, she was also a AVCA All-American Honorable Mention, AVCA All-Region, Preseason AAC Player of the Year. Thompson not only continued her hot start from her freshman year, but she reached the milestone of 1000 kills her sophomore year which was the fastest Bearcat to ever reach 1000 kills, and the only player to reach that milestone as a sophomore. Thompson’s stats her sophomore year included the following 4.92 kills per set (6th in the NCAA), 5.50 points per set (6th in the NCAA), 580 total kills (8th in the NCAA), Thompson also finished second in the record books at Cincinnati where she recorded 4.0 kills per set, and 8th in school history where she held an attacking percentage of .294%. After the season ended Thompson continued her journey with the USA National Colligate Ream where the spent the summer of 2017 traveling and playing in Thailand. As a sophomore teams and coaches were starting to hear the name of Jordan Thompson a lot when it came to volleyball as she was making it known she was going to be a force to be reckon with as long as she played for the Bearcats.
In 2017 Thompson continued to show why she was on of the top players in all of college volleyball where she earned her Unanimous AAC Preseason Player of the year, Preseason First Team All-AAC. Although Thompson didn’t play in 2017 though where she redshirted and missed some time for the Bearcats, Thompson bounced back in 2018 stronger than ever where she continued to dominant the college volleyball world even after a year off.
