By Danielle Nelson

*This article is posted on Owlscoop.

Photo Credit – Matt Slocum/Associated Press

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At least once every other week you can find Trey Lowe standing in front of a room full of students.

Whether it’s Antheil Elementary, Fisher Middle School or his current school, Ewing High, Lowe has spent the past two years giving motivational speeches to youths across Mercer County in New Jersey in an effort to inspire.

“I would talk to them about staying in school and how you need your education to be whatever you want to be,” Lowe said of his speeches. “And if you put your mind to it and try to become the best player you can be, the best person you can be in a sport or whatever you do, it can help you get a free education, which can help you pursue your dreams in life.”

In about a month, Lowe will begin to pave a new path to his dreams. The high school senior will graduate from Ewing on June 24. Five days later, Lowe will begin his athletic and academic journey with the University he signed with a little less than a year ago, Temple University.

“He will come on campus and start summer school with us after freshmen orientation and then afterwards, we will start our summer workouts,” assistant coach Dwayne Killings said.

Lowe is one of three commits that will grace Temple’s basketball roster from the 2015 recruiting class next season and with six months until the start of the 2015-2016 basketball campaign, the small forward understands his playing time is “up in the air.”

“[Coach Fran Dunphy] said its up to me if I want to start or come off the bench,” Lowe said. “As soon as I get there I am going to try and build chemistry with my team.”

Lowe is familiar with at least two of his future teammates. Incoming freshmen Ernest Aflakpui and Levan Alston both played with him over the years. Lowe and Aflakpui shared the basketball during the summer of their sophomore year with We-R-1, an AAU team. The following year, Lowe switched AAU teams, to team-up with Alston on Team Final. Now, all three will don on Temple jerseys this Fall.

And while Lowe is unsure about his playing time, Killings said “he has a chance to help us from day one.” Killings is quite familiar with the type of skills he can bring to the team. The assistant coach started recruiting Lowe as early as his freshman year at Ewing.

“You start hearing about kids, you see them at AAU games, you see them during the high school season and sometimes when you are recruiting one kid you see another kid,” Killings said. “In Trey’s instance, you start hearing stories about him and because he was so close that led us to watch him. Then usually in the process you start evaluating him and watching him play and you start to bring him on campus and teach him what Temple is about and then from there you start building a relationship.”
Between then and now, Lowe has unknowingly shaped his High School legacy. Fresh off a state championship appearance, Lowe has led the Blue Devils with his relentless ability to score from anywhere on the court especially his junior and senior seasons.

“He came in as a set shooter his freshman year, very skinny, very young,” Ewing High School Basketball Coach Shelley Dearden said. “He was not tall at the time, he was only 5-foot, 9 when he walked through the doors as a freshman. He went to the weight room and got himself bigger, got himself a little bit quicker, he grew a little bit so his jumping skills and shooting ability got a even better each year. By his end of junior year he was able to score from three point range. He was scoring from the foul line. He was scoring going to the basket and scoring by offensive rebounding. He added a different dynamic to his game each year.”

His 6’ 6” frame has allowed him to shatter some records along the way. Back in January, Lowe eclipsed 2000 points at his High School and went on to cement his name in the record books becoming the all-time scorer at Ewing High School and leading scorer in the Colonial Valley Conference with 2492 points.

As he looks to the next level, Killings already sees how Lowe’s athleticism resembles one of Temple’s former shooting guard.

“He is a very versatile guard and I think that is what makes it so exciting to have him in our program because he fits the mole of other guys we had in the past, guys like Ramone Moore, who can be versatile on the floor and in the way he tries to beat the opposition.”

Nevertheless, No. 1 realizes there are some things he will need to adjust to on the college level.

“I will need to be able to handle the college game because it will speed up and basically perfecting my game and try to become the best player I can and improve my defense.”

Still, the 175 pound shooting guard has a few months before he enters a game for Temple. Overshadowed by his athleticism, Lowe’s academic success has some times gone unnoticed at Ewing. Throughout his four years at Ewing, the senior guard has found studying pivotal to his academic success, which has placed him on the Honor Roll nearly all of his eight semesters at Ewing.

Along with playing for Temple, Lowe will spend most of his time in the School of Media and Communications as he hopes to study sports broadcasting.

While Dearden will lose a great player to graduation, she recognizes that Temple will have a great student-athlete.

“Temple just gained a really great person and great family,” Dearden said. “His family is wonderful. He was brought up really well – to be humble and to work hard for everything that he got. There is a statement that he always goes by ‘Be hungry, Be humble’ and he really lives by that. He is hungry by putting all the work in in the classroom and on the court and he is humble about it.”

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