Hoboken Native To Make Second Appearance In NCAA Tournament

For most people from Hoboken, the annual March Madness experience is a rather pedestrian one: you fill out your brackets, plunk down a cash entry fee for the office pool you're in and hope for the best while watching a flurry of college basketball games spread out over about a two-week period. But for Hoboken native Tyshawn Taylor, the experience is going to be decidedly more thrilling.

Taylor, a sophomore point guard on the University of Kansas Jayhawks, will be taking the court in Oklahoma City tonight in a first-round match-up against Lehigh University. The Jayhawks are one of the top teams in the country and heavy favorites to defeat Lehigh.

Taylor will be among those creating the agony, irony, triumph, and drama that rivets multitudes of sports fans this time of year. But his love for the game began long before the 6-foot-3 guard could dunk a basketball and a long way from Oklahoma City. It all began right here in the Mile Square.

"I have so many memories of Hoboken," Taylor said. "I have a lot of cousins and family there. Hoboken is a small place so everybody is like family."

"Pick up games in Hoboken were always fun," Taylor said. "I felt like I was one of the best players when we played."

Taylor's mother, Jeanell, said her son spent countless hours out playing with friends on one of the two blacktop courts that used to be at Fifth and Jackson Streets. She was hard-pressed to pry him away from his games.

"He wouldn't leave the ballpark," she said. "He was always out there playing." At the time, Jeanell said, she didn't recognize that the budding basketball star was one of the best players out there.

"I was focused on school and education for him," she said.

In 1997, Jeanell and her family left Hoboken and moved to Clearwater, FL. That move proved to be a turning point for Taylor and his basketball game. In Clearwater, Jeanell signed her son up for the Big Brothers Organization and Taylor was paired with Tom Spencer, a retired dotcom executive. Spencer took Taylor, then nine years-old, out to play a little basketball at a local court. He came back to Jeanell and reported that her son had some pretty impressive skills for a nine-year-old.

"As a mother, I think dads are supposed to do that—take their children out to play sports," said Jeanell. "Tom took the place of his missing father. As a kid, I didn't realize Tyshawn was going to be as good [at basketball] as he is today."

Jeanell signed Taylor up to play organized ball and, a few years later, Taylor returned to the area to attend school at St. Anthony in Jersey City, a high school renowned for its basketball team and legendary coach, Bob Hurley, Sr.

Last year, Taylor's freshman season, the Jayhawks won a bid to the NCAA Tournament as a three seed. Jeanell said the team defied outside expectations, and even its own, by winning two games and advancing to the "Sweet 16" before being eliminated by Michigan State.

This season the team dealt with some distractions; Taylor was involved in a preseason fracas with members of the KU football team that left him with a thumb injury and, in January, he wrote a controversial post on the wall of his Facebook page that led to Jayhawks head coach Bill Self demanding that Taylor shut down the page, which he did. Jeanell said some of the events were a misunderstanding, but that the distractions are in the past and Taylor is focused on school and basketball.

Despite those distractions, Kansas posted one of the best records in the country this season (32-2) and its formidable squad is a favorite not only to advance to the Final Four, but to win the whole thing. Jeanell thinks last year's experience will serve Taylor and his teammates well.

And she should know. She's been following Kansas basketball very closely this season.

In August of 2009, Jeanell, who confesses she's only a basketball fan because of her son's success in the sport, moved to Lawrence, KS. She's attended nearly all of KU's games and will be in Oklahoma City tonight for the team's opening game of the tournament.

"I think he's confident," said Jeanell of Taylor's mindset going into the tournament. Taylor doesn't let the pressure affect him too much, she added. If he can go out, spread the ball around to his teammates and execute coach Self's game plan, Jeanell thinks the team will go deep in this year's tournament.

"You've got to take it one game at a time," said Taylor of his tournament approach. "We're just going to try and stay focused with the task at hand."

As for living in Lawrence, "I'm going to be in Kansas as long as Tyshawn is in Kansas," Jeanell quipped. She describes Lawrence as "nice and laid back" compared to life in New Jersey. "It's a slower place, a basketball town," she said.

Jeanell works as a customer service associate at a grocery store in Lawrence and said that, as a parent of a KU basketball player, she enjoys a certain level of prominence in town. People often want to talk Jayhawks basketball with her and send well wishes to her son, which magnifies her delight at Taylor's success.

"I'm proud of him," she said.  "He's doing a good job."

When Taylor is out on the court tonight on college basketball's biggest stage, he says the player fans will see is one who was shaped in Hoboken, a product of the Hoboken Housing Authority.

"Being where I'm from gave me my attitude and hunger—always wanting to be the best and be great. I think that helped me get to where I am now," Taylor said. "Hoboken definitely molded me and built me to who I am right now."