Temple added another piece to first-year head coach Adam Fisher’s roster when Howard transfer Steve Settle announced his verbal commitment to the Owls Friday afternoon.
Settle, a 6-foot-10, 180-pound forward, averaged 11.1 points and 5.7 rebounds per game for a Howard program that won its first MEAC regular-season championship since 1987 and its first MEAC Tournament title since 1992.
A second-team all-MEAC conference selection, Settle scored 10 of his 13 points in the first half in 16th-seeded Howard’s first-round NCAA Tournament loss to No 1. seed and defending national champion Kansas, shooting 5 of 10 overall and 3 of 6 from three-point range.
A week after Howard’s best season in more than 30 years concluded, Settle entered the NCAA’s transfer portal and received interest from multiple programs, including Penn State, Oklahoma State, VCU and Richmond. He ultimately chose Temple over George Washington and told OwlScoop.com in an interview Friday morning prior to his commitment announcement that the choice became clear during his official visit to Temple that started Wednesday night and wrapped up after a full day on campus Thursday.
“I think, for me, Coach Fisher just brought a new energy that I had never seen about the game of basketball,” Settle said. “The confidence he instilled in me since the first time we talked was just different than anything I've ever felt. The desire and determination to want to get better and achieve what I think I can achieve has never been higher, and I think I have the right situation and the right staff behind me to take that next step.”
A graduate of Dematha Catholic High School, Settle will be a ‘five’ in Fisher’s offense in more of a pick-and-pop role with the skills of a stretch ‘four.’ He shot 31.7 percent from three-point range (69 of 218) in his three seasons at Howard, with 63 of those long-range makes coming in the last two seasons.
Settle, who is graduating from Howard Friday afternoon with a degree in sports management, said the way Fisher interacted with the people and staff around him, apart from the basketball court, also played a big part in his decision to choose Temple.
“It hit me when we were walking through (Temple’s Pearson-McGonigle Hall basketball facility), and Coach Fisher talked to every janitor, and he told me that he buys them breakfast and brings them food to eat once a week,” Settle said. “And just seeing the relationship he had with everyone that is really not in the spotlight like that, but kind of makes the train go a little bit, was huge for me. That's kind of how I operate. I like to say hi to everybody. I like to speak and make sure that they know that they're appreciated.
“So when I saw the interaction between him and the janitors, him and the security guards, police officers, the people behind the scenes that make sure everything is good up there, it let me know that that was that was it right there. Seeing that he brought them breakfast, drinks all the time, that was huge for me. So that's kind of what I knew it was Temple.”
The addition of Settle, a graduate transfer who comes to North Broad Street with two seasons of eligibility remaining, brings the Owls’ roster up to 11 scholarship players. Temple lost five players to the NCAA’s transfer portal – center Jamille Reynolds (Cincinnati), guards Daminan Dunn (Houston) and Khalif Battle (Arkansas), and forwards Zach Hicks (Penn State) and Nick Jourdain (Memphis) – after the Owls and former head coach Aaron McKie parted ways after four seasons.
Settle said he came to DeMatha, one of the nation’s better high school basketball programs, as a 5-foot-8, 85-pound freshman before he hit a major spurt that saw him grow by more than a foot by the time he was a senior. Along the way, he played with and was mentored by several future Division I players on a loaded DeMatha roster, including Jahmir Young (Maryland), Justin Moore (Villanova) and Hunter Dickinson, who recently became the most high-profile transfer portal player, going from Michigan to Kansas.
He came to Howard as an underrecruited forward who redshirted as a true freshman before his career took off.
Now, he believes his best basketball is ahead in his next two seasons at Temple.
“They want me to do everything,” Settle said. “I’m a very versatile player. They want me to come off ball screens, they want me to post. They want me to shoot threes, they want me to cut, they want me to guard the other team's best player. They want me to do everything out there, and that's why that was so big for me, because I feel like it's going to allow me to keep taking steps in my development. I think in me showing that I can come off ball screens and can make reads on ball screens at my size is going to be big for me, especially at the next level.
“And just adding some weight, and having the resources to kind of put on what I need to put on. I don't think I need to add 30 pounds. I don't think I need to add 25. I don’t need to add anything crazy. I think what I'm already able to do at my size, if I add probably 10-15 pounds this summer, I'll have everything I need to do that, and that's just gonna open everything else up for me. So I think those are kind of the main things that will just allow me to showcase my whole bag, and my whole skill set.”
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