Die-Hards: What Jeff Capel’s Latest Offer Means for Pitt Basketball Recruiting

Oliver Robinson-Nkamhoua received the news last night that Pitt was offering him a scholarship to join their Class of 2019.

This offer is interesting for a couple different reasons and has some possible implications for Pitt’s 2019-20 roster.

Robinson-Nkamhoua is a 6’9” forward that has a lot of comparisons to current 2019 Pitt commitment Karim Coulibaly in that he’s someone that’s versatile and does a lot of things well both offensively and defensively.

We all knew that Jeff Capel wanted and needed to add another big. But now the question becomes, is he looking to add two more players to this year’s class?

Why would he be looking to add two more and are there enough scholarships for him to do that?

Here’s some pure speculation on my part.

He might have received word that they’re not going to land JUCO 4-star center Khadim Sy or 2019 3-star center Ibrahima Diallo. In the last 24 hours, PSN has reached out to both players to attempt to get an update on their recruiting but haven’t received a return message yet.

If the plan is to add two more bigs, this offer falls right in line with that plan because Pitt would be more than happy to land two of these three players.

The obvious worst case scenario would be that Sy and Diallo both informed Capel that they won’t be coming to Pitt and Robinson-Nkamhoua was third on their big man board but I highly doubt that’s the case.

Anyone that’s watched Pitt this season knows that they’re in desperate need of more talent at forward or center but do they have room (scholarship wise) to add three in this class?

If as anticipated Julian and Justin Champagnie both eventually commit to Pitt that wouldn’t be possible because Pitt only has five scholarships to offer.

The more likely scenario is that a few players that are currently on the team will decide to leave at the end of the season.

In my opinion, that’s the most likely scenario. Aside from the three freshman (X. Johnson, T. McGowens, A. Toney), it wouldn’t shock me if any or all decide to play elsewhere next season.

In all honesty, Malik Ellison, Kham Davis, Samson George and Kene Chukwuka are probably not ACC caliber players. Terrell Brown could be, but doesn’t come to play every game which undoubtedly frustrates the coaches and is likely a reason for his reduced minutes lately.

With tonight potentially being Pitt’s last game of the season, some of these questions could start to get answered in the very near future.