EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – In his ninth season guiding the Black Hils State University men's basketball program, Ryan Thompson has left his mark on the Yellow Jacket program, building the team into one of the top contenders in the nation. On Wednesday, he was named to the Silver Waves Media's Top-50 Most Impactful NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Head Coaches list. Those included in the list are considered to be some of the most impactful people in the college basketball space. These head coaches continue to make a difference at the highest level with their hard work and success.

Thompson was promoted from assistant coach to head coach prior to the 2018-19 season and has since built one of the top programs in NCAA Division II. He currently holds a 170-72 (.702) career record in Spearfish and is just ten wins away from becoming the school's all-time wins leader as he sits behind only Mike Olson, who holds the all-time mark of 179 career wins. He's posted four 20-win seasons, including last year's 30-5 mark that matched the school's all-time wins record. The 2025-26 Yellow Jacket squad reached the NCAA Division II Elite Eight for the third time in the last five seasons, one of only two teams nationally to do so. The Green & Gold previously reached the Elite Eight and advanced to the Final Four in back-to-back seasons in 2021-22 and 2022-23. Among the national prominence, his teams have been ranked in the NABC Coaches' Poll Top-25 rankings 35 times, including an active streak of 17 consecutive polls, and have guided his teams to a record of 65-16 while ranked.

Thompson's teams have captured three RMAC regular season titles in 2019-20, 2021-22, and 2025-26, and have never finished lower than fourth in the league standings. In the postseason, he has coached his teams to a 12-6 record in the RMAC Tournament, which has resulted in two titles, and has an 11-3 mark in the NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Tournament which is highlighted by an unblemished, 9-0 record and three South Central Regional championships.

Thompson has been the recipient of the RMAC Coach of the Year award three times in 2019-20, 2021-22, and 2025-26, as he has coached several of the top players in program history. With Joel Scott and Cam Lowe, the recipients of three RMAC Player of the Year awards and two RMAC Freshman of the Year awards, the duo highlights the talent that Thompson has brought to Spearfish and has developed. Scott was the league's player of the year in 2021-22 and 2022-23, while also being named an All-American by the NABC and D2CCA each year, and the 2022-23 D2CCA Ron Lenz National Player of the Year. While leading Black Hills State to back-to-back Final Four's, he concluded his Yellow Jacket career as the program's all-time leading scorer with 2,471 career points, an average of 21.3 points per game across 116 games played in the Green & Gold. Lowe, the conference player of the year in 2025-26, brought BHSU basketball back to the national stage and the Elite Eight once again, as he scored 1,066 career points in 65 games, averaging 16.4 points per game during his two seasons in Spearfish. He also earned All-American status in 2025-26, receiving the accolade from the NABC.

The success of the Black Hills State basketball program also stretches from the court and into the classroom, as the team has seen numerous players achieve academic success. Thompson has coached two NCAA Elite Scholar Athletes, as Tommy Donovan received the award at the 2022 Elite Eight (award then known as the NCAA Elite 90 Award), and Blake Volmer received the award at the 2026 Elite Eight. The NCAA Elite Scholar Athlete Award is given to the student-athlete at the championship site with the highest GPA. Similarly, at the RMAC Championships, Donovan received the RMAC Summit Award at the RMAC Men's Basketball Championships in 2022 and Volmer received the award at the 2025 and 2026 conference tournament championships. Additionally, Lowe was named First Team Academic All-American by the College Sports Communicators (CSC) in 2025-26 and was the RMAC's Academic Player of the Year in the same season, while Adam Moussa was named Third Team Academic All-American in 2022-23. In total, Thompson's players have received seven First Team Academic All-RMAC selections, 25 RMAC Academic Honor Roll selections, and nine CSC Academic All-District selections.

Thompson and the No. 6 Black Hills State men's basketball team continues the 2026-27 season this weekend, beginning their home schedule on Friday, November 13, as they welcome Minot State to A2 Arena for a 7 p.m. tip-off. They will then face UMary at 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 14, also in A2 Arena, as they look to defend one of the top home court advantages in the country. During Thompson's tenure, the Green & Gold have gone 84-24 on their home court, including a 13-1 mark last season, which was in front of an RMAC leading and third-largest average attendance in NCAA Division II (1,961).