With the end of their season in all likelihood approaching, this promises to be an eventful and perhaps the most important off-season of the Jeff Capel era for the Pitt men’s basketball team.
With four current roster spots available for next year’s team and the real possibility of that increasing by a couple, the Pitt staff are looking to add talent through the Class of 2021 as well as via the transfer portal, which could have a record number of players in it.
One of, if not the first player that Pitt reached out to is former Florida International point guard Antonio Daye. This season for FIU, Daye averaged 17.1 points per game, 4.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game, while shooting 45.5% from the field.
Pittsburgh Sports Now spoke with Daye back at the end of February when Pitt made their initial contact with him and spoke with him again on Sunday to get an update on the communication he’s had with Pitt since then. Daye told PSN he’s talked with them a good amount over the last couple of weeks but anything serious will be on hold for the time being.
“We’ve kind of had a dialog that they’re still in their season right now and are preparing for the ACC Tournament,” said Daye. “That is their main priority right now but the communication between us has still been there. I understand and respect that and am kind of just waiting now until their season ends and then see how things play out. Coach Capel has talked to the people handling my recruiting and he said that he wants to wait until their season is over with to have a full discussion with me about Pitt and the opportunity.”
While Pitt brought that approach up to him, delaying getting serious with schools right now is something that Daye agreed with and was in favoring of doing until he sees which players end up transferring from particular schools as well as any coaching changes that are made.
During their talks over the last couple of weeks, Pitt has expressed to Daye why they’re possibly interested in him taking over Xavier Johnson’s position as point guard next season.
“They believe that I can really score, create for others and the way that I get after it on the defensive end,” Daye said. “They also think that I can be valuable as an older guy in the locker room. That actually is a role that I very much would embrace along with doing whatever the team needs like scoring or getting my teammates involved.”
Daye told PSN that he’s receiving a lot of interest and “some schools are showing more interest than others but I don’t want to name them right now because I know some schools are busy right now and I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”
