Khalif Battle announces he's returning to Temple
Khalif Battle announced on social media Wednesday afternoon that he would be returning to Temple for his junior season.
The rising junior guard has spent the last two months testing the NBA Draft process garnering feedback on his game from professional scouts.
Battle played only seven games this past season before suffering a season-ending foot injury. At the time, albeit a small sample size, he was playing like a potential conference player of the year.
Here are a few snippets from OwlScoop.com's conversation with Battle about the draft process, his development and Temple's returning players.
Battle on meeting with NBA teams:
"I actually turned down all workouts. A number of teams were interested, but I turned all of them down. I didn't feel like I was in good enough shape and I didn't want to go into a workout and be 80% of Khalif Battle. I wanted to be 110% of me... It's hard because you're out for four months and everybody else has been playing the whole year. I really only had two or three weeks to get ready for it so it was kind of difficult."
Battle on the feedback he got:
"They like my size, my strength and how I can score really efficiently. Like the range in my jump shot. The way I can take the ball to the basket. They like my athleticism. One of the biggest things they want to see is me being a better leader... They talked about that like I can’t be so emotional, negatively. I wear my heart on my sleeve so when I’m pissed off everybody knows. That’s really what they were saying was maturity and they want to see me get after it on both ends. My rebounds also dropped from my first year at Temple to this year so they want to see me get that back up also."
Battle on his decision to return:
"It was kind of a tough decision to see if I was going to come back because this past month, like the month of May, I felt like I was better than where I was when I got hurt. I feel like I made a big jump, like I was ready to take the extra leap. But from the feedback I got, they want to see me go back to school and potentially make some noise with a strong chance of getting drafted next year.”
Battle on sharing the floor with Damian Dunn:
“It’s just all about us playing our best at the same time. I don’t think we accomplished that in all the years we’ve been here. I feel like if we play our best basketball together we’re a top 25 team in the country, especially with the bigs we just added. And I feel really, really comfortable with [Hysier Miller] at point guard running the show. I think we're really good defensively as well. We got a big time scorer coming back and a big time scorer that was already there. Now it's just all about putting it together. This year I'm gonna really work hard on staying on the same team in practice instead of playing against each other... I know if we put it together it's scary."