Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 7:00 pm  |  8 responses

Tristan Thompson To Nevada

by Franklyn Calle

Tristan Thompson has relocated tristan_thompsononce again. After migrating to Newark, New Jersey from Toronto, Canada, the 6-9 junior has transferred to Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada. Slam’s top ranked junior is headed to the west coast after being involved in an incident with St. Benedict’s head coach Dan Hurley. It is speculated that they got into a run-in during Tuesday’s game at St. Benedict’s when they hosted Passaic Tech, the last time that Thompson was in a St. Benedict’s uniform. Coach Hurley then decided to kick him off the team for “insubordination” and said that Thompson wouldn’t play another game for St. Benedict’s. The question of whether or not the Toronto native was going to finish his academic school year at the Newark school was answered on Friday when reports started to file out that the Texas-commit was headed to Findlay Prep.

The reports were confirmed when Findlay assistant Todd Simon told ESPNU on Friday night that the future Longhorn would arrive at the school sometime next week. He also said that Thompson should be in uniform for when they travel to Texas to take on Duncanville this upcoming Friday.

Now at Findlay, Thompson joins Avery Bradley, a 6-3 guard who is also a Texas-commit and will be playing in the Jordan Brand Classic as well as expected to take part in the McDonalds All-American game.

New speculation has risen on whether Myck Kabongo, a 6-1 sophomore guard who played with Thompson at St. Benedict’s, will follow suit. Kabongo is also a Toronto native as well as a Texas-commit. Many reports have it that Kabongo will finish the year at St. Benedict’s before deciding on whether to return next fall. In our recent rankings, SLAM has him ranked as the 8th sophomore in the nation.

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  • http://slamonline.com Tzvi T

    Interesting news, even more interested in what happened between him and Hurley.

  • ryan

    tristans also joining Canada Grassroots teamate and longtime friend Corey Joseph(younger brother of Devoe Joseph of Minnesota) at Findlay.

  • winordie

    Tristan is one of wave of hot prspects coming out of Grassroots Canada’s AAU program headed up by Coach Ro Russell

  • John

    I’ve been following this situation for a while. I’m sure there is some truth behind the comments Coach Hurley made about Tristan Thompson being influenced negatively by outside sources. AAU players these days are given more attention and praises than they really diserve. I think in the end it is not fair to the players because they are at an age where they can not deal with distractions. The focus should be on schooling not basketball. Tristan is a great player and by signing at Texas can clearly play anywhere. There is no reason for him to leave St. Bendicts. He shoul not run away from his problems cause in the end it will influence his schooling in a negative way. He should have dealt with his problems and taken accountability. Transfering across the country is not the answer.

  • http://slamonline.com Ben Osborne

    Ironic that Coach Hurley blamed “Grassroots basketball in the US” when Tristan’s Grassroots Basketball team is in Canada.

  • Jackie

    Hurley’s a jerk! That’s why Thompson left. I hope other top recruits realize this fact and spurn Hurley, who resembles his tyrannical former Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo more each day.

  • Dwayne D.

    Judging Russell should not be in this discussion. To be honest he’s been one of the only coaches, who have been giving talented Canadian kids that opportunity to get exposure needed. Tristan comes from a strong family, and has been maintaining a great GPA. Not that type of kid that would stir up trouble! So we got a kid who is possibly still growing, great attitude, above average grades, with “Tremendous” upside to his game!

    For many of you having a kid transfering across the country MAY NOT have been your solution, but your not him or his family! He left a pretty good school, with strong academic history, but he went somewhere, where a coach would let him grow as an athlete/student, and prepare him and his teammates for the next level the NCAA. With that said, a team approximately 8 deep, proved to the Nation they deserved to National Champs!

    As for Coach Hurley, who does run a fine program?, its very important to remember your dealing with High School kids, internationally! This not the NCAA, where things are on a completely other level.

  • TokenGB

    I just wanted to enlighten you to a couple points regarding the unfortunate situation that Tristan Thompson finds himself in. First the strife between Dan Hurley and Tristan arose from Tristan’s committment to the Univ of Texas which was not in line with what Hurley’s choice would have been for Tristan. I have some inside knowledge that Hurley was to piggyback Tristan to the Univ of Florida as an assistant coach when and if Tristan arrived . Therein lies the problem that culminated in his dismissal ! Hurley is a selfish jerk who ought to be exposed in this .

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