Capel gets another one

Jeff Capel’s week keeps getting better.

Four days after landing his first commitment as Pitt head coach, Capel grabbed No. 2 on Saturday when Arlington (Va.) Bishop O’Connell guard Xavier Johnson picked the Panthers.

Johnson joins four-star guard Trey McGowens in Pitt’s 2018 recruiting class. The Panthers had commitments from forward Bryce Golden and junior-college guard Danya Kingsby, but both players re-opened their recruitments in the wake of Kevin Stallings’ firing, leaving Capel to rebuild the class.

Now he has landed a pair of guards with high-major offers who can help right away.

Johnson, 6’1” 175, had been committed to Nebraska since September, but he backed out of that commitment after Kenya Hunter left the Huskers’ program. Tennessee, South Carolina and Ole Miss were involved in his “second recruitment,” but ultimately Capel and the new Pitt staff won out.

With Johnson and McGowens, Capel has now replenished the guard position on Pitt’s roster. In addition to Kingsby leaving the recruiting class, freshman guards Marcus Carr and Parker Stewart both left the program this offseason; as such, the roster Capel inherited had one true guard in freshman Kham Davis and one guard/forward in Jared Wilson-Frame.

Neither Davis nor Wilson-Frame is a point guard, and while McGowens could play the point, Johnson projects at that spot and will likely be the starter there when the season opens in November.

Capel now has two commitments in place, but he’s also got plenty of scholarship room to work with. Only six players from the 2017-18 roster have been confirmed as returning, while guard Malik Ellison and forward Kene Chukwuka are both undeclared at this point; if Ellison and Chukwuka do return to Pitt, Capel still has three spots to fill on the roster, making the possibility of landing more 2018 recruits fairly high.