Elijah Gray sees himself as a 'picture-perfect fit' at Temple

After having dinner with the Temple coaching staff at Del Frisco’s during his official visit last weekend, Elijah Gray settled into his Center City hotel room with his family to take stock of the weekend.

He started to talk things over with his parents, Tasha and Obe Gray, and realized they were all on the same page about the next steps in his college basketball career.

“They gave me their input,” Gray told OwlScoop.com, “and obviously I love and respect them, so it was sincere input. And it added it to what I was already thinking, and I kind of just had a moment in my hotel room where I was like, ‘Yeah, this is where I belong.’”

Gray, a 6-foot-8 transfer forward from Fordham, gave Adam Fisher and his staff his verbal commitment over breakfast the next morning.

Their reaction?

“They were so through the roof … energy through the roof when I told them,” said Gray, who averaged 8.4 points and 3.7 rebounds per game for the Rams as a sophomore this past season. “We were eating breakfast. They were all hyped, and we were probably just laughing about stuff for the next 10-15 minutes. But the energy was through the roof. They’re very excited to have me and I’m very excited to be here with them.”

Gray announced his verbal commitment to Temple Friday morning on social media and spoke with OwlScoop.com moments after announcing his decision. You can listen to the first part of that interview here.

After bolstering their backcourt with commitments from New Mexico transfer Jamal Mashburn Jr., St. Joe’s transfer Lynn Greer III and Penn State transfer Jameel Brown, Fisher and his staff have reason to be excited about adding Gray, a versatile forward with a developing skillset who scored in double figures 12 times for Fordham this past season. After playing sparingly as a freshman, Gray hit 24 three pointers this season after just five as a true freshman, and his free-throw percentage climbed from 60.6% to 76.7%. He also blocked 14 shots and collected 11 steals.

Gray, who chose Temple out of the portal over interest from programs like Saint Louis and Loyola, said he still has much more to round out with his game, but he certainly appears to be a versatile frontcourt piece who could and should pair nicely with 6-foot-9 incoming freshman forward Dillon Battie and anyone else the Owls might add with their two remaining available scholarships.

“They love the fact that I’m 6-8, 6-9, can dribble, shoot, pass, that was like one of the first things that jumped off the page at them,” Gray said when asked what the staff conveyed to him about why they recruited him and what they like about his game. “So they really loved that about me and how versatile I was, and really how I played. When you really look at the tape and look at my film, it fits everything that Coach Fisher and these boys out here were doing last season.

“I can make plays from the top of the key in the zoom action (offense), or I can pick and pop. I can pick and roll, post (up), get out (in transition.) I feel like I was literally a picture-perfect fit for them, so that really was their driving point. They love the versatility. The versatility, the fact that I could shoot, dribble, pass and make plays, was their number one thing that they loved about me the most.”