The light is coming on for JT Thor. That should be a scary sight for the rest of the SEC.

"I was kind of just running around like a chicken with his head cut off. But now I feel like I’m making a big impact on defense and offense."

PF JT Thor (Shanna Lockwood/Auburn Athletics)

Sharife Cooper remembers the first time he watched JT Thor play basketball.

His McEachern team had just finished playing in a tournament game, and Thor’s Norcross was warming up on the floor right afterward. Cooper, who had committed to Auburn in September of his senior season, was immediately struck by the sight of the 6-foot-10 Thor attacking the rim and knocking down jump shots.

“I’m like, ‘Yo, who is that?’” Cooper recalled. “I saw him dunking and laying it up. His jumper was looking good, so I was like, ‘Man, we need him.’”

Thor had reclassified from the 2021 class to 2020, the same one as Cooper. (Had he stayed in the 2021 class, there’s a good chance he would’ve been a 5-star and possibly a top-10 overall recruit.) The Nebraska-born, Alaska-raised Thor originally had a top five of Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma State and UCLA. But Auburn remained undeterred in recruiting him, got him on campus for what would be the 2019-20 home fin…