It's that time of the year, as college basketball programs around the country are losing players left and right to the NCAA Transfer Portal.
Pitt not only isn't an exception, it's primary example of the portal's impact since it was instituted in 2018.
Jeff Capel's Panthers have seen Xavier Johnson, Au'Diese Toney, Gerald Drumgoole, Terrell Brown and Abdoul Karim Coulibaly all enter the portal.
From the outside looking in, that could look like doom to the Capel era. But let's have a reality check.
Capel inherited a dumpster fire like the program hasn't seen in a century from Kevin Stallings, getting only two seniors, neither of which were NBA caliber players. That kept Johnson, Toney and Trey McGowens from being freshmen who had upperclassmen to show them the ropes in Capel's first recruiting class. Now they've all transferred.
But that's become the culture of NCAA basketball. The Transfer Portal has made it so any player can move on from a program if they have even the slightest reason to think they can be featured better somewhere else.
Case in point, the total number of players who've entered the portal eclipsed 1115 Wednesday, setting an all-time high. That's up from 882 transfers in 2018. No program is immune, as even Duke has lost three players to the portal and North Carolina lost a five-star freshman center in Walker Kessler. If something isn't right, players leave. It's just how today's game works.
As Capel fights through losing seasons, players are going to leave him too. Johnson and Toney became overshadowed by Champagnie, while Drumgoole never got past Nike Sibande or Ithiel Horton for playing time. Brown and Coulibaly probably aren't part of the plan either.
But Capel does have a plan. Although Pitt has no commitments yet, Rivals recently made Pitt the frontrunner for five-star center Efton Reid from Florida, and players leaving means Capel can get aggressive to bring players from the portal to Pitt. We'll have to wait and see.
YOUR TURN: Is Capel to blame for players leaving? Or the transfer culture that's emerged?
