When Aaron McKie stepped down as Temple’s men’s basketball coach, all but five of the Owls’ scholarship players entered the transfer portal.
Sophomore All-American Athletic Conference guards Khalif Battle and Damian Dunn left Temple for Arkansas and Houston, sophomore center Jamille Reynolds transferred to Cincinnati and sophomore forward Nick Jourdain took his talents to Memphis.
Temple is still awaiting a decision from sophomore forward Zach Hicks, who visited DePaul last week as the final stop of his recruiting cycle.
West Catholic Preparatory High School forward Zion Stanford, Temple’s lone incoming freshman in 2023, waited for Temple to hire a new coach before deciding if he wanted to ask out of his letter of intent or not.
On March 29, Temple hired former Penn State associate head coach Adam Fisher to succeed McKie – with McKie assisting in the hiring process as a special advisor to Temple Vice President and Director of Athletics Arthur Johnson.
Fisher’s first order of business was to retain assistant coach Chris Clark, who served on both McKie and former Temple head coach Fran Dunphy’s staffs.
Clark was the lead recruiter for many of Temple’s scholarship players during the McKie era and was the team’s de facto offensive coordinator. With his help, Fisher was able to get sophomore point guard Hysier Miller to withdraw from the transfer portal and convince Stanford to stay committed to Temple.
The Owls were able to land former Maryland-Baltimore County guard Matteo Picarelli in the transfer portal on April 17. He averaged 10.1 points per game last season on 39.4 percent shooting, and will add a much-needed boost to Fisher’s three-point shooting-based offense.
Temple now has eight scholarships filled, and will look to Stanford and the transfer portal for help filling the final five.
Here are the players Temple has expressed interest in:
Adam “Budd” Clark
The class of 2023 guard helped Stanford lead West Catholic to its first ever state championship last month. Clark was committed to Coppin State, but decommitted when the Eagles fired head coach Juan Dixon in March.
Since then, Clark and Temple’s staff have been in communication, and Stanford has expressed a desire to play with his West Catholic teammate at Temple.
An undersized player, Clark is known for his quickness and agility. The All-Philadelphia Catholic League guard excels at blowing by his opponents and uses his sneaky athleticism to finish creatively at the rim.
Clark is a true three-level scorer that can efficiently hurt teams in the paint, in the mid range and beyond the arc. He also averaged 3.8 steals per game as a senior for the Burrs.
Myles Foster
Foster averaged 12.5 points and 6.6 rebounds for Monmouth last season as an undersized center on a 7-26 team in a one-bid conference.
His six-foot, seven-inch frame limited him to shooting just 46 percent from the floor, a clip that only included two three-point attempts.
Quante Berry
Berry redshirted at Providence last season and with head coach Ed Cooley leaving to replace Patrick Ewing at Georgetown, Berry had every reason to enter the transfer portal.
The former four-star guard was ranked the No. 40 guard in the nation as a recruit and received offers from schools like Auburn, Florida and Maryland.
Dylan Addae-Wusu
Temple had a run-in with Addae-Wusu in its Nov. 21 loss to St. John’s in the 2022 Empire Classic.
The junior shot 1-for-5 from the field in that game and averaged 9.3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game last season.
Christian Shumate
After spending his true freshman year at Tulsa, Shumate spent the last two seasons at McNeese State.
Last season, the forward averaged 15.1 points and 9.7 rebounds per game on 54.8 percent shooting, earning him All-Southland Conference honors.
Kobe Rodgers
Temple is one of more than 30 Division I programs to reach out to the Nova Southeastern guard. He averaged 11 points on 46.4 percent shooting from the field and 33.3 percent shooting from three.
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