PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It's been seven years since Pitt basketball had a winning season. Nine years since its last NCAA Tournament win. Under Jeff Capel, three straight years of six league wins. Entering his fifth year, is this the best team yet?
"I think so," Capel said Monday. "If you look at it on paper I think so. We got to produce, that's the thing."
Each of the last three seasons there have been moments of optimism only to be crushed by injuries, transfers and moreover a lack of execution and talent. Capel said they needed a lot of wins from March to now in recruiting and the transfer portal. He says adding the seven players, highlighted by four-star guard Dior Johnson, he believes they've gotten them.
"The one thing we wanted to do, we wanted to add shooting and quality depth and certainly size," Capel said. "I do think we've addressed that, from the shooting standpoint on paper we are better, but we have to make them when the lights are on and someone is trying to guard us."
"You gain experience on the court with (6'7", 235-pound forward) Blake Hinson (9.1 points /3.7 rebounds during two years at Ole Miss). (6'3", 185-pound guard) Greg Elliott can shoot the basketball (41% from 3-point line during four years at Marquette). Nelly (Cummings, 6' point guard, 1,112 career points) can shoot the basketball. Blake can shoot the basketball and the twins (freshmen 7'0" Guillermo Diaz Graham and 6'11" Jorge Diaz Graham) can shoot the basketball."
"That's one of the main things we were focusing on is being able to make some shots. Hopefully our returning guys will be able to do that for us. We anticipate John (Hugley) being a guy that still commands a double-team and draws fouls. Hopefully this year we can have a little better shooting around him."
Guard Nike Sibande (6'4"), who suffered a torn ACL during the first exhibition game last year, is structurally back and had 1,570 career points at Miami (Ohio) before transferring. Guard Jamarius Burton returns for a final year after averaging 34 minutes a game with the Panthers last season. He's a thousand-point scorer in his NCAA career.
Forward William Jeffress suffered a left-foot injury and will miss most of the preseason with the goal of returning for the first exhibition game or at least the regular season.
"We are older in the backcourt with Jamarius and Nike back and adding Greg and Nelly," Capel said. "We have more experience and to be quite frank, (more) men. John has more experience, a year under his belt. We hope there is some maturity, leadership and the right attitude."
Will all of that translate into better results?
"We have to see," Capel said. "That's the big thing, we are getting to know our guys. I've known our group together since the first day of school. I'm still trying to figure it out. We had three guys that weren't here this summer and Nike couldn't play. Seeing us collectively together is something we are still learning and trying to figure out about this group."
Capel admits he's been trying to turn this around every year, saying hopefully they've gotten better at it. He does believe recruiting in person has helped and he has a better feel for the players.
As newcomer Elliott said, they really won't know until they deal with adversity. He said he believes in his new teammates. Elliott came from Marquette where they had a coaching change and instead of a rebuilding last season, they went to the NCAA Tournament.
"We are rebuilding it, but at the same time don't need to take losses to learn something," Elliott said.
There have been plenty of losses recently, is now the time where we start to see more wins?
