He was wet from the rain, which had poured for the past two hours, coated in mud from Jerry Yeagley Field and trying to reconcile his team’s elimination from the NCAA Tournament against Xavier.
He remembers the disappointment of not making it past the second round, despite his Hoosiers being ranked the No. 5 team in the country entering the tournament.
He remembered that 2-1 loss, which included a penalty kick he said he “just mis-hit” wide left, throughout the off-season, and he’ll remember that loss throughout this season, though the Hoosiers won’t face Xavier unless they draw the Musketeers in the NCAA tournament.
“That’s always going to be in the back of my mind,” Thompson said. “Tough losses like that are what drive me forward and what keep me going in the future, so it’s definitely always back there.”
The loss to Xavier ended what could be called a breakout season for Thompson. Given a chance to start for the first time entering his sophomore season, Thompson led the Hoosiers in goals with six and points with 15 from the midfield.
Those stats meant Thompson earned a spot on the first-team All-Midwest Region, was named a first-team NSCAA All-American and was a semifinalist for the Missouri Athletic Club’s Hermann Trophy, college soccer’s version of the Heisman Trophy.
“Every team, if they weren’t scouting Tanner before, they do now,” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “That makes you have to be better every day, and he likes that.”
This season, Thompson, now a junior, may have a weapon at his disposal he didn’t have last season.
With the addition of graduate transfer forward Ben Maurey from Brown, the Hoosiers and Thompson have a player capable of holding up play and being a target man in the box.
Yeagley said Maurey is the first player in that vein on the Hoosier team since Eriq Zavaleta was the lone man up top in 2012.
“Someone like Tanner makes my role really easy,” Maurey said. “I just get the ball and dish off to him, and he’s got an immense amount of skill.”
The addition of Maurey also allows Thompson to do something he’s best at — gathering the ball deep and running at a retreating defense.
With Maurey as a target forward, the defense is stretched further back to compensate. This gives Thompson more space to operate on the ball and ultimately create scoring chances.
If a defender attacks Thompson in the final third, he can pass to Maurey, senior midfielder Femi Hollinger-Janzen or another attacking player near the goal.
If the defense takes away the pass, Thompson is more than capable of finding the back of the net from distance.
“Tanner’s very good about getting the ball deeper, running and scoring from distance,” Yeagley said.
Yeagley also said the attack will be Thompson’s to lead this season. As the central attacking midfielder, the offense is dictated by Thompson this year more than ever, Yeagley said.
“Tanner had a really big role and a big season last year,” Yeagley said. “But I think he knows now with some of the other guys that graduated that he needs to continue to elevate.”
Thompson is never the most physically imposing player on the field. At 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds, he looks more like a fan who wandered onto the field than the seventh best player in college soccer this year, according to Top Drawer Soccer.
In addition to that lofty ranking, Top Drawer Soccer also named Thompson one of the five most exciting players in college soccer and put him on its preseason Best XI list.
Thompson was also named to the Hermann Trophy preseason watch list, becoming the first Hoosier to have a spot on the list since Zavaleta in 2012.
“It’s a nice recognition,” Thompson said. “It’s obviously not the first thing I’m looking at. I’m looking at winning a national championship this year.”
A national championship. A ninth star.
That’s what Thompson said everything boils down to.
Not the recognition, the watch lists or the trophies. He said he just wants another shot to play in the NCAA Tournament and to have a chance to play in the College Cup in Kansas City, Missouri, this season.
Well, maybe one other thing, too.
“It’d be nice to see Xavier again sometime this year,” he said.
