Ron Patterson’s next college basketball game will be in an Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis uniform. If it’s a home game, it will be in the same city as his son, Ron Patterson Jr., and closer to the rest of his family.

It’s partly why the transfer that Patterson announced on March 19 ended up in Indianapolis, Patterson’s father Marc said.

“Closer to family, having them come to the games, having his son come to the games and see him play,” Marc Patterson said. “Just to have your circle around you while you’re in college.”

A bond with IUPUI’s head coach and fellow Indiana native Jason Gardner, the fact that the school was one of the first to contact him after his transfer and his late high school teammate Steven Jamison committed to IUPUI before dying of cancer also factored in, Marc Patterson said. Patterson can apply for a hardship waiver — on the grounds of needing to be closer to home — to be eligible to play next season, his father said.

Patterson was also recruited for transfer by Kent State, Ball State, Georgia State, Illinois State, Houston and, especially, Eastern Michigan — where former SU assistant coach Rob Murphy is the head coach. Butler also spoke with the former Orange guard, but Marc Patterson said he wasn’t sure how serious those conversations were.

All of those schools were too far from home though, Marc Patterson said, and his son related well to Gardner.

“They just had a good bond, kind of understand each other, both guards,” he said. “He just had a good feel for him and pulled the trigger.”

After playing sparingly as a freshman, Patterson averaged 2.6 points, 1.7 assists and 0.9 rebounds in 13.9 minutes per game as a sophomore. He was banned by head coach Jim Boeheim from shooting 3s partway through conference play, as he shot 17.3 percent from beyond the arc.

He is the second SU player to announce his transfer this year, after classmate and close friend B.J. Johnson departed for La Salle. Freshman forward Chris McCullough is also leaving, having declared for the NBA Draft.

Correction: In the original version of this story, Steven Jamison’s status as a student at IUPUI was misstated. He committed to IUPUI before he died. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on April 5, 2015 at 3:06 pm

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_