Temple Basketball Transfers Make a Statement vs. No. 10 Kansas

Probably no other basketball team in the long and storied history of the sport at Temple University embodies its founder more than the current one.

Russell Conwell was a best-selling author who wrote an essay entitled “Acres of Diamonds” about a man who traveled the world searching for a fortune but found it only when he returned home. Conwell found his fortune after creating the university in 1884 and then $8 million reading his essay on the lecture circuit.

Chances are, Conwell would like the basketball team representing his school very much after it beat 9-2 and No. 10-ranked Kansas, 77-52, on Monday night. A few of the key players were top recruits elsewhere, but are finding their fortune right at home after transferring back to Philadelphia.

Jesse Morgan was once the leading scorer at  Massachusetts and has now been cleared to start after transferring home. Devin Coleman was a starter at Clemson, but now comes off the bench for the Owls. Jaylen Bond was a top recruit at Texas. Toss in heady senior Florida guard in Will Cummings and one of the best coaches in America in Fran Dunphy and Temple (8-4) could be a dangerous team in the NCAA tournament in March.

Morgan, a shooting guard, played his high school ball four miles away for Olney in the Philadelphia Public League. Bond, a silky smooth 6-foot-7 forward, played just outside the city limits for Plymouth Whitemarsh High. Coleman, another shooter, played in an exclusive prep league just outside Philadelphia for Friends’ Central, a Quaker school.

Temple is a much better team now than it was at the start of the season because Morgan and Coleman got cleared to play on Dec. 18. Any resemblance to the team that got blown out by Villanova and lost close games to UNLV is now purely coincidental, due to a couple of guys who traveled a long way but are now finding their fortune almost literally in their backyards.

Somewhere, Russell Conwell is smiling.

Mike Gibson is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @papreps , “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.