This summer, Pitt basketball will be practicing in italiano.
The Panthers and second-year head coach Jeff Capel will take advantage of an NCAA rule to spend nine days practicing and scrimmaging in Italy this summer.
Every four years, each college basketball program is permitted to take a foreign tour, where they hold 10 additional practices and play exhibition games.
The Panthers will visit Italy from August 5 to 14, Jeff Goodman of Stadium reported on Monday. A schedule for the trip to be announced at a later date.
Even though such trips are permitted every four years, it’s has been longer than that since Pitt participated in one. The Panthers went to Ireland in 2010 and the Bahamas in 2014 with then-head coach Jamie Dixon.
In 2015, Pitt went to Okinawa, Japan to play a regular-season game against Gonzaga, but the game was called at halftime due to poor playing conditions in the gym.
Pitt’s women’s basketball team went to Italy in 2017 with then-head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio.
The Panthers are still finalizing their roster for the 2019-20 season. Senior Kene Chukwuka, who is recovering from offseason hip surgery, junior Terrell Brown and sophomores Xavier Johnson, Trey McGowens and Au’Diese Toney will be joined by freshmen Justin Champagnie, Karim Coulibaly and Gerald Drumgoole, with Pitt still actively recruiting players for this fall.
