The Texas Tech basketball team’s top 2019 signee, Jahmius Ramsey, is now officially a 5-star recruit after picking up his fifth star from one of the nation’s top recruiting services.

The Texas Tech basketball team continues to experience never-before-seen territory this spring. On the heels of the Red Raiders’ first ever appearance in the Final Four, the program experienced another first on Tuesday when 2019 signee Jahmius Ramsey was elevated to a 5-star prospect according to Rivals.com marking the first time a Texas Tech signee has ben rated a 5-star player.

Prior to Tuesday’s release of the final Rivals 150, Ramsey had been the top-rated 4-star player in the nation and the No. 27 overall prospect in his class. Now, he is No. 21 overall after jumping six spots to become the fourth-highest ranked player in Texas. Interestingly, the top player from the state is R.J. Hampton (No. 6 overall), who has Texas Tech in his top-4 along with Kansas, Memphis and Kentucky after reclassifying to join the 2019 class.

The reason that Ramsey was elevated to the highest point of his recruiting cycle is that he has recently impressed in two national all-star games. In last week’s Ballislife All-American game, Ramsey earned co-MVP honors thanks to some spectacular displays of athleticism.

And at April’s Iverson Classic, he opened eyes with jaw-dropping dunks over some of the best players in the country. Playing his senior season at Duncanville High School rather than at one of the national private school basketball powers such as IMG Academy in Florida or Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, Ramsey was at times overlooked because he did not play in front of as many top scouts or analysts as players that play on a national circuit might.

And recruit rankings are often influenced by internal politics as those associated with the top national programs look to guarantee that their players are ranked as highly as possible to further enhance their school’s reputation. Obviously, that is not nearly as important to a public school like Duncanville.

Still, Ramsey earned quite a bit of publicity for leading Duncanville to the 6-A state title and a top-25 national ranking. And after all of Ramsey’s success on the court, Texas Tech fans had been hoping that the highest-ranked recruit in program history would eventually be elevated to the prestigious 5-star level, and there’s good reason why.

Some may say that prospect rankings do not matter, especially after seeing Tech turn former 3-star prospects Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver into first round NBA Draft selections in the past two seasons. But if Texas Tech basketball wants to take the next step in its evolution, it will need to prove that it can recruit on a level with blue-blood programs that annually bring in multiple 5-star prospects.

Certainly, the Red Raiders came tantalizingly close to winning a national title this season without any 5-star recruits but that team was special and unique in that the synergy created by Chris Beard and his staff helped the team outperform what the roster’s individual parts would have suggested it was capable of. Trying to accomplish that on an annual basis is going to be tremendously difficult.

Pulling in blue-chip prospects like Ramsey will give Tech a little bit of a margin for error. In other words, when you have some of the best players in the nation on your roster, you do not have to rely on everything gelling as perfectly as it did in 2019. Every grad transfer does not have to play as well as Matt Mooney or Tariq Owens. Every 3-star prospect does not have to become Jarrett Culver. Every freshman does not have to hit as timely of shots as Kyler Edwards did this March. And so on.

Also, landing one 5-star prospect will help change the perception of a program in the minds of other top recruits. Just like when a boy becomes more appealing to the girls in his middle school class after he has his first girlfriend, Tech will be more appealing to top recruits now that it is viewed as a legitimate destination for 5-star players. (Obviously, that would increase exponentially should Hampton decide to join Ramsey in Lubbock.)

By landing 5-star talent, Chris Beard continues to show that Texas Tech is a legitimate big-time program rather than a feisty underdog that got hot and made a Cinderella run in the tournament. Despite 2019’s success, Tech will still have to prove that it is a program that will remain relevant on the national stage and landing 5-star players will catch the attention of people around the nation and prove that the Red Raiders deserve to be respected at the highest levels.

The change in Ramsey’s ranking has propelled the Red Raiders’ 2019 class to No. 1 in the Big 12 and No. 12 in the nation. Tech’s class also features 4-star wing Terrance Shannon, who is No. 60 in the final Rivals 2019 rankings marking the first time in the Chris Beard era that he has landed two top-100 players in the same class. But Red Raider fans can’t help feeling that this type of success on the recruiting trail is only the beginning.