Temple Basketball: Taj Thweatt’s game fits Aaron McKie’s new-look Owls perfectly

Temple basketball and target Taj Thweatt look like an even better match since McKie’s future roster has started to take shape

Wildwood Catholic junior Taj Thweatt’s name first started crawling across the news feed of Temple basketball fans before this past season. Fran Dunphy and Aaron McKie began recruiting the South Jersey forward heavily last summer, and it was clear immediately that Thweatt fit the Temple mold perfectly.

A hard-rebounding, hard-defending blue-collar player, Thweatt put in the hard work using his athleticism to pound the glass and grind it out on both sides of the ball in his first two years of high school ball. Even though he wasn’t quite the touted recruit before his junior season began, Temple fans were excited; the Owls seemed like an early frontrunner for Thweatt’s services, and his hardworking mentality and athletic game seamlessly fit the culture Temple had built.

Fast forward almost a year, and a lot has changed for both Thweatt and Temple basketball. Taj’s hard work started paying dividends during his junior year with Wildwood Catholic, and his offensive game began to come around. He started scoring in bunches, and led his Crusaders, who play in the usually-quiet Cape-Atlantic League, to a 25-2 overall record in 2019; their only losses were to powerhouse Camden and in overtime to eventual-state champions Ranney. And with the jump in his play anyone could’ve expected going into last season, new offers from high majors have started coming in quickly for Thweatt.

While all this was going on for Thweatt in Wildwood, Temple was preparing to hand its basketball program off to alumnus and five-year assistant coach Aaron McKie. In the few short weeks since McKie has been in charge on North Broad, he’s added three highly touted recruits that have helped shaped Temple’s future roster to fit Thweatt’s style of play even more closely.

Josh Pierre-Louis, another Jersey player that saw his stock skyrocket in 2019 (whose Roselle Catholic happened to be on the losing end to Ranney in the state title game last month), and transfers Tai Strickland and Jake Forrester have been added to Temple’s roster, just since McKie was formally introduced early in April.

Pierre-Louis, Strickland, and Forrester add another layer of elite-level athleticism and tenacious work ethic, and the skills to propel the up-tempo, NBA-style offense McKie plans to introduce this season. With the additions, Temple has put together perhaps the most complimentary roster to Thweatt’s skill set of any program that has offered him to date.

While Temple fans were hoping Thweatt’s addition could help move the program along in its rebuild before this influx of recruits, Temple and McKie have put themselves in a position to offer Thweatt a complete roster ready to compete now, and a style of play that will best showcase his abilities and allow him to continue to be the player he’s developing into.

The free-flowing transition game McKie’s Owls are going to be playing will be attractive to any recruit, but especially to a player like Thweatt. And considering the personnel he’ll have around him – guys ready to run the floor at fifth gear for forty minutes a game, and, maybe even his Wildwood Catholic teammate Jahlil White, who also holds a Temple offer – a Thweatt commitment to Temple seems like a win-win.