Temple Men’s Basketball 2025-2026 Cheat Sheet

With the recent success of the football team, it’s easy to forget that college ball is just about to begin.

And the men’s team is looking to improve on a solid 2024-2025 campaign, which saw them finish 17-15 and lose in the second round of the AAC tournament, under at the time second-year head coach Adam Fisher.

But the Owls face a tough task, as this is almost an entirely new core.

Reflecting on last season

The Owls finished 17-15 (17-14 in Conference play) and lost in the second round of the AAC tournament, where they blew a lead second half against Tulsa without leading scorer Jamal Mashburn Jr.

But in terms of overall play, it was an improvement on the 2023-2024 record of 16-20, 12-19, not counting the AAC tournament.

The root cause of the Owls finishing only two games over .500 is that the team struggled when they weren’t playing at the Liacouras Center, as they had a drastic difference in their home/road splits. When at home, they had the third-best home record in the AAC, sitting at a .857 win %, or a 12-2 record.

Unfortunately, every game couldn’t be played at the Liacouras Center.

The Owls had a bottom-three record in the American on the road, unfortunately finishing with just a 3-9 road record. But the Owls’ road troubles weren’t the only issue.

Temple was third in the American in points per game, behind only UAB and Memphis. But the defense held them back, as they were dead last in the AAC in defensive points per game.

The offense ran through graduate guard Jamal Mashburn Jr, as he led the team by far in points per game, and would have been first in the American in points per game and second in the entire nation, if he had qualified.

Mashburn was an elite offensive weapon for the Owls, leading the team with 22 points per game and 43% from deep.

The team had plenty of great wins, including an upset over #18 Memphis in January, behind 21 points from Mashburn.

Heading into the final nine games of the season, the Owls sat at 6-2 in conference play and 14-8 overall. But struggled closing out the season, losing six straight conference games to essentially reset all the improvements they made.

With three games left in the season, they were sitting at 6-8 in conference play and 14-14 overall. The script totally flipped on the team, basically erasing their chance of getting an auto-bid to the quarterfinals in the AAC tournament.

They did manage to salvage the last three games to finish at 9-8 in conference play, and 17-14 overall.

They entered the AAC tournament as the #7 seed, where they dropped the game to #10 Tulsa after a second-half collapse where the Owls blew a 42-30 lead to end their season.

Unfortunately for the Owls, four players, including Mashburn and Steve Settle III, ran out of eligibility.

The forward, Settle, was the defensive leader for the Owls, leading the team in rebounds (191), third in steals (31), and first in blocks (31), while occasionally being an offensive source for the team.

To add to the blow, multiple players transferred out, which featured sophomore Zion Stanford, who was second in scoring on the team, transferring to the Owls’ rival, Villanova.

Who’s returning?

The Owls only managed to keep four guys, as most of the team either ran out of eligibility, hit the portal, or pursuing a career in the NBA.

Mashburns strong ’24-’25 campaign was rewarded with being drafted by the Westchester Knicks in the NBA G-League draft, but wound up being traded to the Grand Rapids Gold, the Denver Nuggets G-League affiliate.

Settle was just recently signed by the Miami Heat to an Exhibit 10 contract and will be assigned to the G-League affiliate, Sioux Falls Skyforce.

The only returning players are sophomore standouts Babatunde Durodola and Aiden Tobiason, senior center Mohamed Keita, and walk-on guard Connor Gal.

Durodola and Tobiason were both impressive with the playing time they received as freshmen.

Tobiason found himself getting more minutes with injuries, making a start in the Big 5 classic and never looked back. His defense was a staple of his game and he continued to make strides offensively with an 18 point performance against Memphis.

Tobiason was an AAC All-Freshman Team honoree last season, averaging around 20 minutes per game, under five points per game on 46% from the field.

Durodola was another interesting part of the season for the Owls as a true freshman starting game one for Temple. Durodola averaged just under five points and five rebounds a game but was one of the bright spots on the defensive end.

However, among Temple players with more than 100 field goal attempts, Durodola led the team in efficiency, hitting 48.6% of his shots.

Of the four, the senior Gal saw the least amount of playing time last season, only playing in five games, averaging only one minute per game. Keita, a transfer, saw the court in stints for the Owls, mostly being impactful with his length at 7’1.

It’s a slim list of returners for the Owls, but they brought in a bunch of new guys.

New Faces

11 of the 15 players on the roster are new this year. A majority are incoming transfers.

Eight players came in through the transfer portal. 247Sports ranked the Owls class at #87 in the country, and #4 in the American.

The transfer class was highlighted by guard Derrian Ford and forward Gavin Griffiths, both of whom are former four-star prospects.

Last season with Arkansas State, Ford averaged eight points and three rebounds per game and had three performances of 17+ points.

Griffiths, the transfer from Nebraska, missed 18 of the team’s 34 games and only averaged two points per game while seeing about eight minutes a night. Though Griffiths isn’t afraid to pull up from the three-point line, as 138 of his 248 field goal attempts are from deep.

The Owls also brought in forward Spencer Mahoney (Cal transfer), guard AJ Smith (Charleston), and center Jamai Felt (Bowling Green), all of whom were three-star transfer prospects.

Of these three, Smith’s numbers jump off the page the most. Even though he took a slight step back from his ’23-’24 campaign, he still averaged 11.5 points per game and hit on 43.1% of his shots. But in his ’23-’24 season, he averaged 16.2 PPG, 4.3 RPG, and shot 35% from three.

Mahoney didn’t see much of the court in his redshirt freshman year at Cal, and didn’t put up great numbers in his limited minutes, but a fresh start in Philly could be exactly what he needed.

Felt, playing center, put up a solid year in his freshman year at Bowling Green, averaging five points, six rebounds, and shooting 64% from the field. He also posted four double-doubles last season.

Temple also welcomed guards Masiah Gilyard and CJ Hines, both seniors who can put up points; last season, they averaged 11.2 and 14.1 PPG, respectively.

The Owls signed three guys as part of their incoming freshman class.

Guard Cam Wallace highlighted the recruiting class. Hailing from Norristown, Wallace was the tenth-ranked PA prospect according to 247sports.

They also brought in Olin Chamberlain from St Joe’s Prep and international prospect Ayuba Bryant from Germany.

That rounds out the new faces coming to North Broad Street.

What will this season look like?

The American Conference preseason poll has the Owls at ninth in the conference. But anything can happen, whether it’s good or bad. It’s almost an entirely new team, so it’s naturally a little hard to predict.

Outside of Villanova, the Owls have a favorable non-conference schedule before conference play begins. Those conference games will be a good look into what exactly we can expect from this team this year.

Meanwhile, conference play boasts some challenges.

Memphis continues to be the powerhouse of the American Conference. South Florida and Tulane will also be challenges for the Owls, but the middle pack of the conference could go either way.

ESPN’s matchup predictor has the Owls as favorites in all but six of their scheduled games.

Even though they lost a lot of their core from last season, including Mashburn, who was their top scorer, Temple did a lot of work in bringing in both recruits and transfers to rebuild the core and set

Now, the Owls will likely continue to dominate at home, but can they get over the hump of being on the road?

The Owls will open up the season against Delaware State on Wednesday, right here in Philadelphia at the Liacouras Center at 7 p.m. Follow along for WHIP’s coverage of the mens team all season long.