Temple: One season over, one begins

Like many Temple fans, watched the finale of the Adam Fisher Story on Thursday night as the men’s basketball team lost to Tulsa.

Unacceptable.

Temple is a great school in the only World Heritage City in the United States with nearly 40,000 full-time students and many more famous alumni than Tulsa and Tulsa is in the middle of bum-bleep Oklahoma with only 3,200 full-time students.

If there is a legitimate leadership council at Temple, heads should roll.

That’s a discussion for another time and probably the next Board of Trustees meeting at Sullivan Hall.

One season is over and one is beginning.

Temple is led on the football side by a CEO who proved he knows what he is doing at three separate schools.

There is no reason to believe that won’t happen at a fourth.

On the other hand, Fisher’s major claim to fame was editing videos for Jim Larranaga at Miami.

Pretty wide gap between the two hires.

K.C. Keeler’s first week as a Temple head coach at an “official” spring practice will end tomorrow and there is a lot of good to say about his production.

Temple’s “Employee of the Week” showed an impressive grasp of the personnel under his disposal.

As a hard-core Temple fan for the last four years, I’ve studied the roster pretty well and think I have a firm handle on the ability of the holdovers.

In his first press conference as Temple’s head coach, Keeler demonstrated an “off-the-charts” kind of knowledge of the individual skills of every player who every reporter asked him about. That proves to me he both already studied the film and had an honest sit-down with all 105 scholarship players in the program.

Now all that needs left to be done is a clean evaluation of a month of practice and a further determination of what must be done in the transfer portal to plug a hole here and there.

That’s the kind of knowledge that Stan Drayton never showed in his three years here.

Will it translate into more wins?

That will all be determined by how Keeler’s staff fills the 10 or so holes that will inevitably need to be filled after spring practice is concluded.

Put it this way: I have a lot more confidence in a football guy leading my football program than a video guy leading my basketball program.

Monday: Doubting Thomases

5 thoughts on “Temple: One season over, one begins

  1. I believe Temple has two quality coaches in Adam Fisher and KC Keeler. Yeah the Owls lost to Tulsa in the AAC tournament. But I watched Fisher’s pre-game pep talk to his players and was impressed with his enthusiasm. As for Keeler, based on what I’ve seen thus far, he should quickly turn things around for the better. Looking forward to the opener against UMass.

  2. Agree, and the loss puts Fisher on the clock.

    • Unfortunately, he has one more year left. If I’m in charge at Temple (above the AD level), he’s gone now. St. Joe (with much less resources than Temple) is 22-11 with a win over Dayton. Temple basketball with a much better history and $50 million practice facility has diddly-squat to show for it.

  3. Mike, knowing college sport is a tough business, basketball for TU was the one last hope for some respectability around here, well they have not done much, have they ? Time for a new HC for TU BB, one who has a chance to recruit is what’s needed ? Maybe ?

    • Former Penn point guard Andy Toole has Robert Morris in the dance again. He also beat Kentucky in the NIT with Robert Morris talent. That’s a guy Temple should have hired last time. Now he’ll probably go to Villanova. Temple once again a day late and a dollar short in hoops although the football hire was great.

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