Juan Manuel "Lobito" Fernández (born July 22, 1990) is an Argentine-Italian professional basketball player for Pallacanestro Trieste of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA). His father, Gustavo, was a point guard for a number of professional basketball teams in Argentina. Pepe Sánchez convinced Fernández to play basketball at his alma mater, Temple University, and Fernández joined the Temple Owls team in December 2008. As a sophomore, he was named Atlantic 10 Tournament Most Valuable Player. After struggling through a prolonged shooting slump as a junior, he hit an off-balance 18-foot shot with .4 seconds remaining to defeat Penn State in the 2011 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and was named to the All-Atlantic 10 Third Team. In addition to his college exploits, he defended Argentina bringing home a gold medal at the 2008 Under-18 World Championship.
Early life
Fernández was born on July 22, 1990, in Rio Tercero, Argentina to Gustavo Fernández and Nancy Fiandrino. His father was a point guard for a number of professional basketball teams in Argentina. He earned the nickname "Lobito" (Spanish for "little wolf") after starring on a basketball team with a wolf mascot. Juan Fernández's little brother, also named Gustavo, fell out of a chair when he was a toddler and used a wheelchair for life. He is one of the top wheelchair tennis players in the world under the age of 18. The family operates the Pinot Grigio restaurant in Río Tercero.
At the urging of his father, Juan Fernández began playing basketball when he was six years old. He described himself as a "fat little kid" who was more interested in being a soccer goalie at first. When Fernández showed star potential on junior club teams, he was given the "Lobito" nickname, while his father became known as "Lobo".
As a teenager, Fernández was offered deals to play in the Spanish B and C league when he graduated from Dr. Alexis Carrel High School. At the same time, he was considering playing college basketball in the United States. His mother went to Connecticut for six months to learn English, and she persuaded him that it would be a good place to be a student-athlete. Pepe Sánchez, an Argentine basketball player who played college basketball at Temple University, offered some advice in an e-mail:
Sánchez had recommended Fernández to the coach of his alma mater, Fran Dunphy. Dunphy dispatched assistant Matt Langel to recruit Fernández to Temple. On one recruiting trip, Langel drove for 10 hours on the backroads of Argentina searching for Fernández, who was practicing with the national team instead of home in Rio Tercero as Langel had thought. After his official visit to the Philadelphia campus in September 2008, Fernández signed his letter of intent. He graduated high school in December, and enrolled at Temple.
College career
Freshman
Fernández played college basketball with the Temple Owls men's basketball team. At Temple, Fernández drew immediate comparisons to Sánchez; he was dubbed "Pepe Sánchez with a jump shot." He chose Sánchez's jersey, number 4, but Fernández said this was to honor his father. Unfamiliar with the practice of lifting weights, Fernández wore gloves to his first session, drawing the laughs of his teammates. Against Kent State, Fernández contributed eight points and four assists in his Temple debut, three days after arriving in the United States. He scored a season-high 19 points on February 15, 2009, to power Temple past Duquesne 78–73. The Owls reached the 2009 NCAA tournament after winning the Atlantic 10 tournament title. In 23 games, he averaged 5.5 points and 2.7 assists per game on the basketball court, and earned a 3.0 grade point average in the classroom.