Cam Corhen is set to enter his third season as a college basketball player in the ACC, but this upcoming year will be his first dawning a Pitt uniform. Corhen, a 6-foot-10 junior, played the past two seasons for Florida State.
He was not a slouch for the Seminoles, either.
Corhen started 33 games over the past two years and averaged 9.4 points per game for Florida State this past season. Many players would be looking to continue that trajectory, but for Corhen, he sees the upcoming 2024-25 season with Pitt as a brand new opportunity.
“I feel like this is a fresh start,” Corhen told reporters following Pitt’s team workout on Thursday. "I can show things I haven’t been able to show before, expand on things I have been able to show, so I feel like I’ll look like a whole new player this year.”
Corhen has had plenty of success in college basketball and gives the Panthers a reliable option to replace Federiko Federiko, the team’s starting center from the past two seasons.
Even with his ‘fresh start’ mentality, Pitt should have a good starting point with Corhen. Pitt head coach Jeff Capel is well aware of that, too.
Back in March, Corhen scored 25 points and grabbed eight rebounds against Pitt while playing with Florida State. The Panthers won that game, but that Corhen performance obviously caught Capel’s attention. When Pitt started to recruit him out of the transfer portal, he liked the honesty in Capel’s message to him.
“He wanted to expand my game,” Corhen said of Capel’s recruiting pitch. “He’s obviously seen the things I could do, but he was talking about the things I couldn’t do. Most coaches just want to tell you what you want to hear, and that wasn’t him at all.”
The belief is that Corhen can come in and provide an immediate upgrade to the team’s scoring from the center position. The Pitt coaches also believe that all of those points do not necessarily have to come in the paint, either. One area of his game the staff is trying to unlock is scoring from the perimeter.
“I’ve been with Coach TO (Tim O’Toole) every morning,” Corhen said of his workout routine in recent weeks. “We shoot so many 3s, my shoulder hurts as we speak.”
The offensive end is already a relative strength for Corhen. At this stage of his career, he is looking to expand his arsenal while getting more opportunities.
But, offense is only half of the game.
Corhen also noted that he needs to work on his defense in general, but also because of philosophy change. Florida State had its big men switch on defense, while Pitt likes to have their centers ‘hedge’ ball screens, then retreat to their man. It’s a new concept for him, but he’s had some help.
Guillermo Diaz Graham, Pitt’s junior 7-foot forward, will be competing with Corhen for minutes, but in other cases, the two big men will be on the floor together. It’s not so much a competition, but rather a working relationship, and Corhen is happy to have his help.
“It’s crazy because he’s taught me a lot of things,” Corhen said of his Diaz Graham. "Like coming in here, I didn’t know how to hedge a ball screen. I didn’t know how to do certain things and he’s helped me more than anybody, honestly.”
It’s not that he was not expecting his teammates to help him out once he got to campus, it’s just that Corhen wasn’t sure if things would be as genuine as they were on his official visit. Capel and the coaching staff sold him on the team culture and the tight knit locker room. After being here for a month, he realized that message was not at all smoke in mirrors.
“At first, I was a little skeptical because obviously coaches tell you what you want to hear,” Corhen said of bond around the program. “But now that I’m here and I’m with the culture and I see how everything goes, I think we can do it.”
Not every transfer stays in the same conference, but in Corhen’s case, it gives him a little bit of leg up more than most. After playing two full seasons of ACC basketball, he knows the rigors of the league and what it takes to win it. After spending a few weeks with his new teammates, Corhen has high hopes for what Pitt can accomplish this upcoming season.
“I feel like we can win the ACC,” the junior forward said. “I know this school finished in the top four last year, even after a rough start in the beginning. I feel like this year we can rattle off some wins and win it.”
