Little is guaranteed in today’s college basketball landscape. But in Zion Stanford, Temple has leadership.

FORT WORTH, Texas — From Adam Fisher’s first phone conversation with Steve Settle III, he felt a kinship with the forward from southern Maryland. Fisher, newly hired as the Temple men’s basketball coach, was trying to recruit Settle, who began his career about 10 miles from home at Howard University.

“It was good conversation, not just basketball, but life,” said Fisher, who just completed his second season on North Broad. “And, look, if we can go find 13 Steve Settles to have on your team, that’s what you want.”

The Owls may not have that, but they do have someone who has watched Settle lead for two seasons: Zion Stanford.

Stanford, a 6-foot-6 sophomore guard out of West Catholic, took a big leap between his first and second seasons. After averaging 6.6 points on 51.5% shooting as a freshman, he more than doubled his rebounding and assist averages while scoring 12.9 points per game this season, which ended Thursday with a 75-71 loss to Tulsa in the second round of the American Athletic Conference tournament.

As Temple’s double-digit halftime lead slipped away throughout the second half Thursday, it was Stanford making shots down the stretch. After Keaston Willis’ three gave Tulsa its first lead since the middle of the first half, Stanford hit a pair of free throws to briefly swing the advantage back in Temple.

Five of Stanford’s 17 points came in the final 4:11, and he was his team’s leading scorer in the second half. But the Golden Hurricane’s defensive adjustments — not to mention Temple’s second-half shooting woes — consigned its 2024-25 season to the history books at 17-15.

Temple had plenty of veterans this season. Fisher thanked four of them — Settle, Shane Dezonie, Matteo Piccarelli, and Jamal Mashburn Jr. — following the loss. But players like Stanford, who had a solid freshman season and only continued to grow around that quartet, future-proofs what Fisher is building.

“In basketball, in any sport, like any competitive sport, one man can go down, so that doesn’t mean the season is over or it’s the end of the world,” Stanford said. “So once that happens, just me keeping the next-man-up mentality and just staying focused and trusting my teammates, trusting in my coaches.”

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And did the Owls ever go down with injuries.

Fisher doesn’t think he had any games this season for which his full complement of 13 scholarship players was available. Somebody was hurt, whether it was Mashburn, who was the nation’s second-leading scorer when a lower-body injury derailed his season; or another key sophomore, Quante Berry, whose finger ailment sidelined him against Tulsa. (And that’s not to mention highly touted St. Joseph’s transfer Lynn Greer III, who was suspended indefinitely in January.)

“I tell these guys all the time, ‘Nobody feels bad for you, right?’” Fisher said. “It’s part of the game, and I think we got to see a lot of growth from a lot of guys, especially our younger guys.

“How many teams in this league are starting two freshmen? We started three freshmen two games ago vs. South Florida. Like, we need our guys to keep getting better, and I think when you stay in our program you get better. Look at Zion’s numbers from last year to this year. That’s what I expect to see from all of the players, [for] them [to] get better as we go through it.”

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Nobody appeared in every game for the Owls this season. But Stanford and Settle suited up 31 times for Temple as its postseason drought reached a sixth season. Times have changed since the Owls, then coached by Fran Dunphy (whose coaching career ended Thursday), were last in the NCAA Tournament.

Fisher recognizes that. He also recognizes that there’s no guarantee young standouts like Berry and Stanford — or key freshmen Aiden Tobiason, Babatunde Durodola, and Dillon Battie, the three freshmen who started against South Florida on Feb. 26 — will stick around. But Fisher has a plan. And it starts close to home.

“We’ve been working on the revenue share, the NIL,” he said. “Since I’ve been here, NIL has not been as competitive as where we want it to be, but I think we’re going in the right direction. Then we’ve got to assess — the first thing you’ve got to do is meet with the guys and figure out who is coming back. And then you got to recruit those guys to come back.”

From the sound of it, at least one Owl is staying in the nest, one whom Fisher called “a star in the making.”

“Upperclassmen are known for being leaders and showing the underclassmen how to do things, how the speed, how the strength is, just being a mentor to the younger players,” Stanford said. “So I feel like that will be my role next year.”