UPDATED: Nov. 2, 2018 at 10:47 a.m.

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. — Taurean Thompson lives by his own code, no matter what anybody else thinks. His Seton Hall teammates are quick to note that he doesn’t own a cell phone. They joke about the idea that he’s not on Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat either, though he maintains an Instagram — on his MacBook, which he uses for messaging.

Before Seton Hall’s practice Thursday afternoon, Thompson was the first player to make it to the practice gym and grab a basketball. But a team staffer approached him after he made one layup and asked him to go back to the team room — he wasn’t supposed to be on the court that early. During practice, he stretched slightly out of the team lines, and a teammate corrected Thompson after he misunderstood his role in the full-court weave drill.

In his lone season at Syracuse, Thompson earned a reputation of indifferent pursuit of self. High-level college sports teams value their athletes who sacrifice individuality for team. Thompson presents the reverse. He’s “mad confident” in himself, the life he lives and his ability on the basketball court, regardless of the consequences that mindset may bring.

Which explains the way in which the 6-foot-10 native of New York, New York, left Syracuse last year after a freshman season that showed so much promise. SU players said this week that Thompson wasn’t responding to text messages when he went home in spring 2017, following his freshman season. It’s clear why: He didn’t have a phone since he lost it “sometime” during his freshman season with the Orange.

“I’m irresponsible, man,” Thompson told The Daily Orange in an interview Thursday afternoon.

Thompson left the Orange because he felt he had to. He hadn’t intended on transferring out, but concern over his mother’s health escalated shortly after basketball season ended in March 2017, he said. He declined to elaborate on her health, and his mother, Sherese Piper, has not returned three phone calls over the past month.

Thompson said he’s closest to his mother, who encouraged him to dream of more than playing professional basketball. She urged him to fence and play soccer, and learn Beethoven on the guitar. He was given sketch pads after Piper saw him invisibly tracing the Manhattan skyscrapers with his finger.

Last fall, Thompson would have been a probable starter in the SU frontcourt. He projects to start for the Pirates in their season opener next week after sitting out last season due to NCAA transfer rules. He has three years of NCAA eligibility remaining, and his goal is clear: play in the NBA and be a Hall of Famer, a vision he set long before entering college thanks to his height. He’s been over 6-feet tall since fifth grade and reached 6-foot-6 by eighth grade.  

Taurean Thompson was part of the 2016-17 Syracuse team that missed the NCAA tournament and went to the NIT. Jessica Sheldon | Staff Photographer

The timeline for his decision to leave Syracuse goes as follows, according to Thompson.

After the 2016-17 season, he said he did not work out in the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, unlike his teammates. By June 2017, he made a joint decision with his mother that he needed to transfer from Syracuse and be closer to her residence in Harlem.

He said he didn’t think of telling his SU teammates or coaches that he was going to transfer. Asked whether he considered notifying SU earlier than he did — he said he didn’t tell SU until two months after he made the decision — Thompson said: “Nah. I just left.”

“I had to go home because there are a lot of things going on,” Thompson added. “My mom, mainly, and to be close to the fam for a bunch of reasons.”

Thompson enjoyed his freshman season at SU and still calls junior guard Tyus Battle his “boy.” He doesn’t recall many of the details from his lone season in central New York. But sometime late in the summer of 2017, he said, he notified Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim that he would transfer. He explained to Boeheim that his decision was not related to frustration with playing time or the coaches. Instead, he wanted to play at a New York area school to be near his mom, who had begun “experiencing some issues,” he said.

Soon, Thompson said, Boeheim flew from Syracuse to New Jersey to meet with him. He did not recall much of the August 2017 meeting. Thompson explained his mother’s health.

“He just came in, I told him how I felt, he told me how he felt,” Thompson said. “I can’t talk about that no more.”

Through Syracuse sports information director Pete Moore, Boeheim declined to comment.

Taurean Thompson said he met with Jim Boeheim in August 2017 after he’d decided he was transferring. Jessica Sheldon | Staff Photographer

One of the other reasons Thompson said he left SU traces back to another August 2017 event. He was playing pickup basketball at an outdoor court in a section of Harlem. On one play, he fell hard to the pavement and broke his right elbow.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d be ready for the season,” Thompson said of the incident. “That also played a role in me coming to Seton Hall. I was able to have surgery near here, get some screws. I really wanted to be closer to home.”

At Syracuse, the odds were stacked in Thompson’s favor. He arrived on campus in the summer of 2016 as a consensus Top 100 and four-star recruit. As a freshman during the 2016-17 season, which ended in the NIT, he averaged 9.2 points and 3.8 rebounds in 18 minutes per game while shooting 54.6 percent from the field.

But a history of transferring schools, beginning before high school, may also explain his decision to leave SU.

Thompson played his freshman, sophomore and junior seasons of high school basketball at St. Anthony (New Jersey) High School in Jersey City. The school, which closed last year, was led by legendary basketball coach Bob Hurley, who won 28 state titles since taking the job in 1972.

This week, Hurley said he first noticed Thompson at a local basketball camp before his freshman year of high school. He estimates Thompson was about 6-foot-6, and he decided to put him on the varsity team, not JV, to accelerate his development. He played sparingly his first year but then blossomed into a surefire Division I prospect.

Hurley said Thompson, with the finesse, versatility and coordination unusual for a high school player of his size, piqued the interest of a number of programs, including Syracuse, Michigan State, Arizona, Xavier, North Carolina State and Seton Hall. Thompson said that out of high school he nearly elected to attend Seton Hall, which is about 15 miles west of New York City, although he picked the Orange prior to his senior season.

But toward the end of Thompson’s junior year, Hurley became concerned. Hurley noticed that Thompson was not participating in player conditioning and workouts. He said he did not speak with Thompson about that and has not since. A few weeks after his junior season, Thompson withdrew from St. Anthony and enrolled at Brewster Academy (New Hampshire).

“All of the sudden, we weren’t seeing him anywhere,” Hurley said. “For whatever reason, the family wasn’t happy with his development. They took him out. There was something going on that the family decided to put him in prep school. It was unusual, because he was improving, a nice kid, and showing flashes of a lot of potential.”

Asked about his decision to transfer from St. Anthony, Thompson repeatedly heaped praise on Hurley.

Thompson had switched schools before that. He left the New York City area during middle school, he said, to attend a school in West Newton, Massachusetts until he started high school. He did not explain why.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the professional sport Taureen Thompson’s mother encouraged him to dream more than was misstated. Thompson’s mother encouraged him to dream more than playing professional basketball. 

Published on November 1, 2018 at 10:04 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21