Left wing, right wing, fading away from the basket, it didn’t really matter what Southern Methodist threw at Devin Coleman. The Temple guard’s 7-for-7 performance from beyond the 3-point arc helped the Owls hand then-No. 8 SMU its first loss on Jan. 24.

This season, Coleman has scored the third-most points per game for Temple and has been one of the team’s best 3-point shooters, making nine more than any other player on the team.

But just two years ago, Coleman was toiling away at Clemson while playing a paltry 10 minutes per game instead of leading his hometown team. The Philadelphia native lived almost 700 miles and more than 10 hours from home.

After the 10th game of that season, Coleman came home from school to see his family. Instead of preparing to go back, he and his family sat down to discuss his future. He decided instead of going back to Clemson, he would transfer midseason.

“It’s always special playing in the city that you grew up in,” Coleman said, “Playing in front of the people that watched you grow up.”

Temple (12-8, 6-3 American Athletic) has grabbed Philadelphia natives that have gone to other schools and wanted to come back. In the last three years, head coach Fran Dunphy has reeled in five Philadelphia transfers.

Dalton Pepper led Temple in scoring in his senior year (2013-14) after spending two seasons with West Virginia. Jesse Morgan, who graduated last season, finished the year third in scoring after transferring from Massachusetts. This season, Jaylen Bond (Texas) and Coleman are second and third in scoring, and Bond leads the team in rebounding.

“We’ve had a number of them over the years and they’ve been great additions,” Dunphy said. “… so we’re grateful for that. When they change their minds, they make different kinds of decisions.”

Dunphy and his staff recruited Coleman from his sophomore year until his senior of high school, but found another player who they knew wanted to come to Temple. The Owls stopped recruiting Coleman once the player they found committed.

The senior guard approached the Owls about transferring during his Winter Break and Dunphy said it took just one visit before Coleman committed to Temple. Coleman sat out the second half of the 2013-14 season and the first half of the 2014-15 season due to transfer rules.

His rebounding and defensive play were two parts of the senior’s game that Dunphy noted as positives in recruiting him.

“I think all of those blended into saying, ‘You know what? Let’s give this man a chance,’” Dunphy said. “He wants to come back home, we need a guard.”

Coleman has received the opportunity to play against former teammates and opponents from the Philadelphia high school circuit when he’s played other local colleges, including former AAU teammate and St. Joseph’s guard Aaron Brown.

Coleman enjoyed seeing his former teammate grow as a player since the two graduated. Brown, like Coleman, transferred schools to come back home when he left West Virginia.

After games, when Coleman peels off his basketball gear and leaves the court in the Licouras Center behind him, he always gets to see his family — something he rarely got at Clemson.

“That’s always a positive,” Coleman said. “To be able to come out of the locker room, win, lose or draw just to see my mom.”

For Coleman and the other transfers, they get a level of comfort they can’t get elsewhere with other teams away from home, and it’s benefitted Dunphy’s team. This season, Temple gets nearly a third of its scoring from transfers.

“They’ve removed a lot of doubt that they had before, so that’s the comfort level … They thought they had something different and better,” Dunphy said. “The grass is greener somewhere else and all of a sudden they decide they want to come back home.”

Published on February 4, 2016 at 12:03 am

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati