When is Capel's last straw for Pitt basketball? taken on the South Side (Pitt)

PITT ATHLETICS

Jeff Capel.

If you're hoping for Pitt basketball to return to being a competitive team in its conference any time soon, that's probably going to take a while now.

The last two days have seen Pitt lose out on the recruitment of highly pursued five-star center Efton Reid, and then Justin Champagnie, the Panthers' best player in almost a decade, declared for the NBA Draft Monday.

Champagnie headed to the NBA should be celebrated. If he makes it on a team, he'll be the first Panther since Jamel Artis to do so with his last NCAA season playing for Pitt. Champagnie went from being a three-star recruit to the ACC's second-leading scorer, leading rebounder, and the first Pitt player to make First Team All-ACC.

But any celebrations of Champagnie only delay the inevitable dread of the challenges Pitt faces in the coming seasons. Capel saw five players leave via Transfer Portal and now with Champagnie gone he's rebuilding the starting lineup.

That rebuild stacks on top of the rebuild Capel already had to do after Kevin Stallings wrecked the program in just two seasons when he finished with a .369 winning percentage, the worst of the program in over a hundred years. Combine that with coaching through a pandemic and a surge to over 1,570 transfers when there had never been more than 1,025, and that's a lot of unprecedented challenges.

Capel hasn't had a winning season yet and saw an exodus of players, but he still should be given some grace because of those challenges. That ends if he doesn't turn things around using his 2020 recruiting class. Femi Odukale, William Jeffress, and Noah Collier need to be developed, and not all transfer out like Xavier Johnson, Au'Diese Toney and Trey McGowans did.

YOUR TURN: Has Capel had his last straw? Or should he get more time?

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