City of Basketball Love

Jeff Griffith
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2025-26 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 4. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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In the modern era of college basketball, the faster your team can gel, the better.

That’s always been the case, but with rosters in the 2020s being more unfamiliar with one another than ever, it’s all the more prominent. 

Luckily, entering her fourth season at Temple, head women’s basketball coach Diane Richardson feels pretty good about how her program performs in that category.

“I think we’ve mastered that,” Richardson said.

“Well, maybe not mastered,” she added with a light chuckle. “But I think we’ve done very well with getting that trust and that culture going with the squad.”

Heading into the 2025-26 season — one that has the potential to capitalize on the program’s upward trajectory, but also has as much roster turnover as any other season, which presents its challenges — the Owls will be looking to the character of its program to drive success in a pivotal season. 

“I think the biggest thing with having transfers and new people in is to get the culture built early,” Richardson said. “We have some really great individuals that know that if we play together, we can be unstoppable.”

So, what exactly is Temple trying to piece together?

First off, in terms of what needs to be replaced, the answer is three of the Owls’ top six scorers from last season. Of course, that means the other half of those top six scorers return — which is pretty solid in the current era of the sport — but the losses of Tiarra East (13.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg), Tarriyonna Gary (11.9 ppg, 3.7 rpg), and Anissa Rivera (7.9 ppg) certainly aren’t nothing. 

Three key experienced returners, though — junior guards Kaylah Turner (9.9 ppg, 2.4 rpg) and Tristen Taylor (6.7 ppg), and junior forward Jaleesa Molina (7.5 ppg, 7.0 rpg) — have the full stamp of approval from Richardson as it pertains to veteran leadership and continuing development.

“Turner is a scorer, but now she’s working on assists and controlling the offense, so we’re really curious about that,” she said. “Jaleesa was a great rebounder, and now she’s working on her shot. And then Tristen, she’s our engine. She keeps us going. She, too, is looking at being more of an offensive threat.”

Temple also has three transfers joining the fold for the 2025-26 season, and Richardson expressed excitement in the way they complement her returning leaders. 

Richardson and Molina alike spoke highly of Saniyah Craig, a 6-foot-1 junior who averaged 10.7 points and 9.7 rebounds in two years at Jacksonville; as a sophomore, she averaged more than 11 of each. 

According to Molina, Craig — a veteran of the Division I level — has already stepped into a leadership role with the Owls.

“I feel like she was a leader at her old school,” she said. “And she brought that here.”

“We’re really fortunate that she came to Temple,” Richardson added. “We’re going to look for her on the boards, we need that.”

In Temple’s transfer class, Craig is joined by 5-7 sophomore Brianna Mead — who played a productive freshman season at Long Island with 8.8 ppg, 2.2 rpg and 1.6 apg — and Khloe Miller, a freshman who redshirted at East Carolina last season; Richardson referred to Miller as “very versatile.”

“I feel like we fit really well with the people who have transferred in,” Molina said. “We like each other, we’ve got a good chemistry. It’s just the perfect people.”

So, if there’s one thing Temple has this season, it’s a well-rounded and experienced core at its forefront. For a team that had three players account for two-thirds of its shot attempts last season, that’s a nice change of pace.

The question mark, though, will be who steps up into depth roles. Temple had just seven players average more than 10 minutes last season, and of course, only three of them remain. Perhaps it’s sophomore guard Savannah Curry, who appeared in all 31 games last season and connected on 31 percent of her three-point attempts. 

“We’re not having to concentrate on just a couple of scorers this year,” Richardson said. “I think everybody on our team now, with our returners getting more confident, and our transfers in, I think we’re going to be well-rounded.”

Of course, answering those questions and developing a rhythm as early as possible will be paramount. The hairs that split apart on NCAA Tournament résumés are often grown in November and December; when it comes time to compare teams for postseason bids, a lot of times, who you played and who you beat in the non-conference moves the needle. 

The last two years have seen the Owls land on the wrong side of that conversation. They haven’t necessarily been locked in the thick of the bubble conversation, but with 20 wins in each of the last two seasons, it’s been more an issue of résumé quality than sheer volume of wins that’s kept Temple from its first NCAA Tournament since 2017. 

This year, there’s plenty of opportunity. Temple will play a litany of respectable programs in the non-conference, including no fewer than three that reached last year’s NCAA Tournament — West Virginia (No. 6 Seed), Michigan State (No. 7), and Princeton (No. 10) — as well as Villanova and Richmond squads that narrowly missed the field. 

Simply put, if Temple wants to build an at-large résumé, it’s going to have to have the puzzle pieces fit together as close to the season’s outset as possible. 

“That’s really important, and every coach in America is dealing with it and trying to get it to work with the transfers,” Richardson said. “I don’t think there’s a team in the country that didn’t have a transfer. All of us are having to pivot.”

That being said, Richardson sees Temple’s most direct path to March as its own league; it’s certainly a wide-open league, as four different teams have earned its automatic bid in the last four years. 

That’s been an area of success for the Owls in recent seasons; Temple went 13-5 in AAC play each of the last two years, landing in the league’s top four in both seasons. The Owls, though, have fallen short in back-to-back conference tournament semifinals, losing to an under-seeded Rice team both times.

“That’s the motivation that we all need,” Taylor said. “We can’t let that happen for a third year in a row.” 

“I’m not doing that again,” Molina added. “I’m trying to make sure everybody works as hard as they can to get ready for March.”

And in order to flip that script, Richardson sees her team’s depth as the key to extended success. 

“We’ve got to win the conference,” Richardson said. “This year, I think we’ll be more well-rounded, we’ll be more of an offensive threat in all areas of the floor, and I think that’s going to help us.”