The news about Pitt's basketball recruiting progress for the 2021 class is that there is no news.
As of today, Pitt is the only program out of 15 ACC teams without an announced commitment from a player for its class. But when you look at all the reasons for Pitt's current status, the answers quickly add up.
According to 247Sports, Pitt has made 18 offers to players for their 2022 recruiting class. But 17 of those players have already announced commitments to other universities.
That looks bad on its face, but Pitt's recent recruiting classes paint a different picture, especially the 2020 class. Pitt's bench features five freshmen in John Hugley, Noah Collier, Femi Odukale, Max Amadasun and William Jeffress. That class was ranked fourth best in the ACC by 247Sports last year, and the late addition of Jeffress in April is what put it over the top. And that didn't even include getting Nike Sibande as a transfer.
Jeffress originally would've been part of Pitt's 2021 class but decided to reclassify and forego his final year of high school eligibility. The decision comes at no cost of his collegiate eligibility thanks to the blanket waiver offered by the NCAA so that no players who participate in the 2020-2021 season will lose a year.
Now, Pitt only has a few scholarship offers available for its 2021 class.
"We're still actively recruiting," Jeff Capel said Monday. "Earlier in the season, especially in the fall, we had one scholarship and were waiting to see what would happen with Nike. And now we've got two scholarships for next year we can use. We're trying to find the right fit. It's a different kind of challenge with no official visits. We're not able to go out and see kids, but we're still actively pursuing guys."
The one player listed on 247Sports to have an offer from Pitt but who hasn't committed to any university is 6-foot-10, 210-pound center Bretner Mutumbo from Chattanooga, Tenn. And yes, he's Dikembe Mutombo's nephew.
Mutumbo has offers from seven other universities, including Florida, Xavier, Georgia Tech and Georgia. Of those programs, Pitt and Xavier are the only ones that currently have one pure center on the roster. Pitt's is Amadasun, a 6-foot-10, 230 lbs. player from Dublin, Ireland who has only played five minutes of action in Pitt's first eight games.
Pitt also has senior Terrell Brown, who comes off the bench behind both Abdoul Karim Coulibaly and Hugley, who play as forwards. Brown is the last player on the roster from the Kevin Stallings era and deserves credit for sticking with the program despite knowing he would be relegated to the bench for most of the season.
Even though Brown could come back next season on the waiver, it would make sense that Capel to look for his replacement with this next class. Not that Mutumbo is definitely that player, but it might be that Capel is looking for his first real center to add to his roster in his three years of recruiting. With two scholarship spots available, Capel could get his commitments in the spring.
Hugley, Amadasun and Collier were committed to Pitt by October of 2019, but Capel also got commitments from Odukale in March, and Jeffress in late April. Jeffress was also ranked as a consensus top-75 prospect, so Capel delivering a good recruit after the season wouldn't be out of the question.