Adam Fisher Leads Temple to Improbable AAC Tournament Run, Here's Where His Story Begins

North Philly's school has trended downward recently, but it's potential return to relevance began in Miami

One year ago, Temple men’s basketball seemed to be in shambles. A program that entered the 2022-23 season with the fifth-most wins in Division I had an up-and-down season that included home losses to Wagner and Maryland-Eastern Shore, and a win at then-No. 1 Houston. Add in that the Owls were preparing for their best players to leave and make significantly more NIL money in the transfer portal, uncertainty surrounded their head coach, and it was a critical offseason for the program

Fast forward to Sunday, and the Owls under first-year head coach Adam Fisher were playing in the American Athletic Conference championship game after defeating Florida Atlantic, a Final Four team in 2023 that returned all of its starters and head coach Dusty May.

Before Wednesday’s win against UTSA in the first round, Temple hadn’t won a conference tournament game in six years. Just like that, it appears Temple may have hired the right man to return to the program to national relevance. But where did he come from?

The story of the 2023-24 Owls begins in South Florida with Jim Larrañaga, who has been the head basketball coach at Miami since 2011. Miami is historically known as a football school, but you wouldn’t know that based on Larrañaga’s tenure.

In a stacked ACC featuring two Blue Bloods in Duke and UNC, and other historically relevant programs such as Virginia and N.C. State, the Hurricanes have become a consistent tournament team, making it to the Final Four in 2023 before losing to eventual champion UConn.

Miami’s recent stretch of success has included some of the best guard play in the country, with some important ones coming by way of a city with no relation to Larrañaga or Miami: Philadelphia.

Larrañaga has sent four of the area's top talents — guards Lonnie Walker IV (Reading), Wooga Poplar (Math, Civics and Sciences), Isaiah Wong (Bonner Prendi), and Davon Reed (Princeton Day School) — to the NBA, and they were all crucial in the NCAA Tournament during their respective times at Miami.

But, as is the case in college sports, Larrañaga can’t get all the credit. In this case, it belongs to a quirky Penn State alum from Jamison, Pa., who never played basketball at even the high school level.

Fisher was on Miami’s bench from 2013-20, helping the Hurricanes make three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances after losing the 2015 NIT championship to Stanford.

Miami already had Reed and guard Ja’Quan Newton (Neumann Goretti) before it was Fisher’s turn to become a full-time assistant. Those players were so impactful for Miami that Larrañaga realized he needed someone scouting and recruiting that area of the country permanently.

“[Fisher] loves Philadelphia. He grew up there, spent a lot of time [there]. Went to Penn State, was at Villanova during one of Jay Wright’s great runs. And so I was looking for someone who could recruit that geographical area,” Larrañaga told ALL 52.

“So when Eric Konkol left to go to Louisiana Tech, and Adam was a director of basketball operations, he and I sat down and talked and I told him, ‘Look, Philadelphia has a lot of terrific players. If you end up being elevated, we really need to explore that possibility of recruiting that area. And so the first recruit was Lonnie, who played for Team Final — which we already loved because we had signed Davon Reed and Ja’Quan Newton prior to Lonnie Walker. And that Team Final connection was very, very important to our recruitment. We knew that if we could get consistent with our efforts in that city, that we could maybe steal a player or two each year.”

After Miami, Fisher spent two years as Micah Shrewsberry’s right-hand man at Penn State, where the Nittany Lions set school and Big Ten records for three-pointers in a season. While there, Fisher was pivotal in getting commitments from guard Jameel Brown (Westtown), center Demetrius Lilley (Lower Merion), Bucknell transfer wing Andrew Funk (Archbishop Wood) and lastly a transfer from his next job, Temple wing Zach Hicks (Camden Catholic).

Following a 30-point loss to Cincinnati in the quarterfinals of the 2023 American Athletic Conference Championship ended a tournament-or-bust season — which was derailed by the February departure of current Arkansas shooting guard Khalif Battle — Aaron McKie opted to forego the final year of his contract and stepped down as head coach at his alma mater, moving into an advisory role for athletic director Arthur Johnson.

Then, Mike Brey left Notre Dame in the offseason, and it became clear that Shrewsberry was going to take his talents to South Bend. So, Fisher threw his name in the hat in an attempt to become a head coach and tackle the task of restoring a once-great program to prominence.

He started by recruiting the sharpshooting Hicks as soon as he entered the transfer portal. Weeks later, Fisher beat out Vermont coach John Becker and Missouri assistant Charlton “C.Y.” Young for the Temple job. The only thing that didn’t go to plan was Hicks, who committed to Penn State instead of Fisher.

Fisher knew he’d need help with his first head coaching gig, so he called in a favor from an old friend who helped him land the Miami job — Michael Huger.

Huger, a smart point guard out of New York City, turned down John Chaney and Temple to play for Larrañaga at Bowling Green from 1989-93. When Huger finished his overseas playing career, he spent two years as an assistant at Longwood under Mike Gillian — a Larrañaga disciple — before joining Larrañaga’s staff at George Mason from 2007-11. Huger followed Larrañaga to Miami in 2011 and stayed until he left to become Bowling Green’s head coach in 2015.

In 2013, the Hurricanes needed a new director of ops. Huger, Konkol and fellow assistant Chris Caputo all had to present a candidate to Larrañaga, and Huger didn’t have one.

Then, Huger got a call from Eugene Burroughs, Penn State’s associate head coach at the time. Burroughs told Huger about Fisher and set up a phone call between the two, leading to Fishers’ start in Miami.

Fisher initially followed Huger to Bowling Green in 2015, leaving his director of basketball operations job at Miami to be a full-time assistant.

“My wife told me that I made a mistake letting him go,” Larrañaga said. “And that I should convince him to stay at Miami, and that he would move up the next time we had an opening.”

Fisher stuck with Larrañaga and was promoted to assistant coach when Konkol took the Louisiana Tech job two weeks later. Walker was Fisher’s first recruit.

A decade later, Huger is doing Fisher another favor.

“I still had the opportunity to not coach for the next two years and still get paid,” Huger said, reflecting on his firing from Bowling Green last March. “So it was just going back and forth on whether I wanted to get right back in and, you know, it took some time just to be away. And just in that month or so, I got the itch to get right back into coaching. So when he made the call and asked ‘Hey can you come down and help me out with this thing? We're gonna get it off the ground,’ I just looked at it as a challenge of trying to help bring Temple back to its glory days.”

But their success will have to start with keeping Philly kids in Philly, a large part of McKie’s downfall.

Since discovering he would be Fran Dunphy’s successor starting with the 2019-20 season, McKie missed out on talents like Poplar, 2019 four-star forwards Donta Scott and Hakim Hart (Imhotep and Roman Catholic, respectively) and 2021 four-star Cincinnati guard Dan Skillings Jr. (Roman Catholic).

None hurt McKie more than Skillings, though. The guard, who averaged 5.3 points per game in 2023, scored a career-high 15 points in the Bearcats’ Feb. 22 win against Temple. He then set his career-high again with a 20-point performance in Cincinnati’s AAC quarterfinals win against the Owls last March.

Fisher’s staff wasn’t able to retain Hicks, Battle (Trenton Catholic) or forward Nick Jourdain (Covenant), and lost the recruiting battle for 2024 point guard Khaafiq Myers (Neumann Goretti). However, the Owls retained Myers’s mentor and fellow Saint, Hysier Miller, and former Wildwood Catholic teammates and best friends, Jahlil White and Taj Thweatt.

Perhaps more importantly, they were able to retain the commitment of forward Zion Stanford (West Catholic), who left school early to attend Fisher’s introductory press conference at The Liacouras Center. The two-time All-State selection and 2023 Philadelphia Catholic League champion has twice been named AAC Freshman of the Week this season.

Temple also has commitments from rising three-star Delaware guard Aiden Tobiason (St. Elizabeth) — who many in the area believe is the best player in the state — and Dillon Battie, son of four-year Temple starter and 1993 Elite Eight team member Derrick Battie.

McKie’s son, 2025 St. Joe’s Prep guard Jaron McKie, also holds an offer from Temple.

In an attempt to fully capture the essence of North Philly, Fisher filled his staff with local staples as McKie did with Chris Clark, Mark Macon, Jason Ivey, Colin Daly and Jaylen Bond — all former Owls — and Jimmy Fenerty. In addition to Huger, Fisher retained Clark and Jaylen Bond from McKie’s staff while adding Bobby Jordan, Clark’s rival at Roman Catholic and Drexel who served on former Temple assistant Dwayne Killings’ staff at Albany.

He also added both Lynn Greer and Khalif Wyatt, two more former Owls, to the bench.

Fisher didn’t forget about Miami though, as he brought Jimmy Polisi — a 2020 Temple grad who spent three years on Larrañaga’s staff — to be his director of basketball operations. And to continue passing opportunities along, Fisher hired Camren Wynter —  whom he coached at Penn State last season — as a special assistant to the head coach.

Polisi was pretty much destined to get the job. The same way Huger got Fisher the operations job at Miami is how Fisher got Polisi a graduate assistant spot with the Hurricanes in 2020. Fisher’s version of Burroughs, though, was then Temple assistant Jimmy Fenerty — who spent four years working hand-in-hand with Clark.

“That’s what we need, that’s what he needs,” Clark said at Fisher’s introduction. “People who just love Temple and they want to be here, they want to put on that uniform.”

Of course, he was more than happy to now have Fisher and Huger’s help rather than competing with them and Miami’s resources.

Rebuilding Temple won’t be the easiest job in the world as the school’s brand has diminished since 2016 — Matt Rhule’s last year as head football coach and Temple’s last time reaching the Round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament. Plus, Temple Athletics and the TUFF Fund — the school’s lone NIL collective — are yet to get on the same page, resulting in the athletic department being in a worse NIL state than schools in the MAAC.

For now, Fisher’s selling point is old school: getting in early on recruitment while selling his team’s style of play, the program’s history and a chance to play close to home in Philadelphia — a complete role reversal from Fisher’s time down south.

“If you don't come here, that's the best place for you,” Fisher said. “We've got a lot of history, and you’ve got an opportunity to restore that tradition and continue the legacy. And right now in today's day and age, if you're from this area and you're as good as you think you're going to be and you’re going to play at the next level, this is the last time you choose where you play. Why not do it in front of family and friends?”

After Temple’s run in the conference tournament, Fisher has something better than film on his side: positive national conversation — something no team in the Big 5 besides St. Joe’s has these days.

Everyone loves the Cinderella story, and that’s exactly what Temple was on national television. As the transfer portal opens Monday, Fisher and his staff have the necessary momentum for some early recruiting wins for low-major players looking for a better conference like All-AAC Tournament team big man Steve Settle III was coming in from Howard this season, and high-major players seeking career redemption like guard Jordan Riley was coming from Georgetown this season.

The Owls are even in a better NIL space, as several alumni donated money to the TUFF Fund this weekend, tying their donations to Temple’s point totals.

It can’t be forgotten that the Owls finished the 2023-24 campaign with a 16-20 record, including an 11th-place regular season finish in The American. But there’s now a blueprint of what the team can look like and a fanbase with optimism about what the future holds.

With a clear vision of getting back to what made Harry Litwack, Chaney and Dunphy’s squads perennial NCAA Tournament teams, Fisher and his staff are confident that they can also reach that success — and so is Larrañaga.

“I think one of the things that Fish mentioned to me right away is that he loves the tradition that Temple has built over decades,” Larrañaga said. 

“It’s not just the last 10 years, but if you go back, 50 years to Harry Litwack and then John Chaney and those guys who put Temple at the top of their conference and the national rankings, I think Fish has his goals set to keep laying the groundwork and a strong foundation for future successes. That stuff doesn't come overnight. It takes a while to build your program and to get the caliber of player you're looking for who fits your philosophy. He's really headed in the right direction. And hopefully in the next few years, he'll have the kind of team that he wants to build.”