Thanksgiving week is going to have a March feel for Adam Fisher and his Temple men’s basketball team.

Temple announced Wednesday that it will be playing in the Terry’s Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational from Nov. 24-26 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort.

The Owls will play three games in three days in the invitational’s Adventure Bracket, which will include Rhode Island, Vermont, Princeton, Liberty, Bradley, Towson and UC San Diego, with the schedule and full bracket release coming this summer.

Temple will be competing in an in-season tournament in Orlando for the first time since the 2019-2020 Covid-shortened season, when the Owls lost to Maryland before beating Texas A&M and Davidson at the Orlando Invitational. It will be the program’s sixth in-season tournament in Orlando and third in an ESPN-affiliated event.

Tickets to the invitational will go on sale later this summer once the bracket and schedule are released, and fans can go to the ESPN Events invitational website to gain early access for pre-sale tickets.

Roster nearing completion

Fisher and his staff are close to putting the finishing touches on a roster that lost all but three players to the transfer portal or those who were out of eligibility. Rising sophomore guard Aiden Tobiason, who was named to the American Athletic Conference’s all-freshman team, will return, as will rising sophomore forward Babatunde Durodola and rising senior center Mohamed Keita. Tobiason averaged 4.8 points and 2.1 rebounds in 27 games while shooting nearly 46% from the floor and 41.2% from three-point range. Durodola, who averaged 4.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game, was the only Temple player to start all 32 games last season and became the first Owls freshman to start more than 30 games since 2007-08.

Durodola and Keita will get help in the frontcourt from Bowling Green transfer big man Jamai Felt, a 6-foot-10 forward who made the Mid-American Conference all-freshman team this past season after leading the MAC in blocks with 46 as a redshirt freshman. He was originally recruited to Bowling Green by former Falcons head coach Michael Huger, who is now entering his third season on Fisher’s staff as the Owls’ associate head coach. In addition to Felt, the staff has added a pair of wing forwards in Cal transfer Spencer Mahoney and Belgian forward Ayuba Bryant, an incoming freshman who played in France’s LNB Pro-A under-21 league for JL Bourg-en-Bresse.

Another incoming freshman, Westtown School guard Cam Wallace, will join a revamped backcourt that has added Arkansas State transfer Derrian Ford, Nebraska transfer Gavin Griffiths, Alabama State transfer CJ Hines and Manhattan transfer Masiah Gilyard. Ford (ranked 84th nationally in the 2022 class) and Griffiths (ranked 23rd in the 2023 class) are former 4-star recruits who initially started their careers at Arkansas and Rutgers, respectively.

Numerous sources have told OwlScoop that Temple is still looking to add another capable ball handler to its backcourt and perhaps a developmental player from the high school ranks.