PITTSBURGH — The first item of business for Pitt's Jeff Capel after last season was to convince Heather Lyke he had made enough progress in four seasons to merit a fifth, despite a record of 21-53 in ACC games. Capel's teams have won just six ACC games in each of the last three seasons and have seemingly gotten worse — not better — as the season went along.
Capel accomplished the first mission and was indeed given the vote of confidence from Lyke to continue to try to rebuild the Panthers program into some semblance of what it used to be. I am guessing it was an easy sell because Capel has had a plan. He has actually recruited well; he just hasn't been able to retain most of his best players or keep guys around long enough to develop them.
The next important step was for him to prove he can retain his best players from year to year, and for the most part, he did. John Hugley was Pitt's best and most important player last season, and he will return for next season. Jamarius Burton was the team's second-leading scorer, and he will be back, and he convinced Nike Sibande, who was injured last year, to return for his final season.
Ithiel Horton and Femi Odukale did transfer, and both would have helped, but neither was a difference maker, and so they weren't irreplaceable by any stretch. And despite the loss of those two, Capel was successful in keeping a reasonable core together to build upon, and that's what he needed to do.
That meant there was one last extremely important step Capel needed this offseason in order to prove Lyke's faith in him was not misplaced: Recruit his tail off. Pitt's biggest problem: Against ACC opposition, they just weren't talented enough. They lacked a true point guard. They didn't shoot it well enough, and they didn't have enough size to handle the frontcourts of many of the teams they played.
Capel needed to get better players, more depth and more size this offseason, and he did exactly that, which is why it is very fair to say the Panthers offseason has probably been better than even the most optimistic of projections.
The Panthers obviously now need to take the biggest and most important step: Go win basketball games next season, but as far as offseasons go, Capel has had an incredible one. It remains to be seen if that will translate into better results on the court, but looking at what he has accomplished on paper so far, it is hard not to believe we will see clear improvement from Pitt.
Capel finished his recruiting class with a bang as he won a huge recruiting battle Monday for one of the best players in the country, Dior Johnson out of Southern California. Johnson is the 37th-rated player in the class of 2022 and the seventh-rated point guard. That makes him the highest-rated recruit Capel has signed to date at Pitt.
Johnson was the eighth player Capel added this cycle, and quite frankly, again on paper, they all look like players who will help the Panthers win ACC games. The group is led by experienced transfers Nelly Cummings (Colgate), Greg Elliott (Marquette) and Blake Hinson (Iowa State). Point guard was Pitt's biggest need, and with Cummings, who has NCAA Tournament experience, and Johnson, that void has been filled.
Capel also went out and got two of the top junior college players in Fede Federiko and Cashius McNeilly and then added a talented — and intriguing — set of twins in prep prospects Jorge Diaz-Graham and Guillermo Diaz-Graham. The twins and Federiko are all three 6-11 or bigger (Guillermo is 7-0), and that means the Panthers have filled their second-biggest need, size to bolster their front court around Hugley, as well.
This group of players seems to have all the elements to be successful — length, size, athleticism and even an abundance of skill — so it really feels like, for the first time in a long time, Pitt basketball fans might have a reason to be optimistic. I guess I technically lied when I said the next step is for Pitt to win games because there is a step prior to that, which is every bit as important, and that is for Capel and his staff to develop these players with strong offseason workouts and also help them learn to play together and become a team.
It is going to be a big year for Capel, some would say even a make-or-break year, given it's year five and the program has taken only modest strides forward from the dumpster fire it was when he arrived. He seemed like the right guy for the job when he was hired, but now, his margin for error is thin and it is go time for him.
I said at the end of the season he needed to have a huge offseason in terms of building a roster or he would be just delaying the inevitable. He has done exactly that, and now, he at least seemingly has the tools to have a chance to make next season a real breakthrough year.
