Payton: 'I just kind of had that feeling'
Chris Payton announced his commitment to Pitt yesterday afternoon. The 6’7” forward out of Indian Hills Community College is a junior college transfer that will come to Oakland with three years to play.
Payton held additional scholarship offers from the likes of Maryland, SMU, Texas Tech, and more, but he believes he found the right opportunity at Pitt. The Pitt coaching staff had been in contact with Payton for a while, and he felt ready to make a decision on Monday afternoon.
“I just kind of had that feeling,” Payton told Panther-Lair.com. “Obviously I’ve had a decent amount of schools that have tried to recruit and try to get me to come to their school, but when Pitt reached out even before they offered I kind of had a feeling that that would be a place that I would want to go.”
Pitt assistant coach Milan Brown was the lead in Payton’s recruitment. He also spoke to Jeff Capel yesterday, and is looking forward to getting to campus and developing a relationship with the entire coaching staff.
“Obviously they are still developing,” Payton said of his connection with the Pitt coaches. “But I think we’re going to have a great relationship with all of the coaching staff.”
More than anything about Pitt, Payton saw an opportunity in front of him. Pitt has some open playing time at the forward position and presented the chance for him to compete in the ACC. Those thing combined were big factors in his decision.
“I mean obviously I understand the level of competition, even the type of players we have on our team coming up this year, but I still obviously got to get familiar with the ACC and everything and kind of figure it out,” he explained. “But the opportunity is huge and I’ve got to capitalize on it.”
Prior to his commitment on Monday, there was some news around the Pitt program surrounding Justin Champagnie. The All-ACC pick from this past season made his intentions to officially enter the NBA Draft and hire an agent, thus ending his college career. Payton watched that process play out in recent weeks, and decided quickly from there.
“It was a pretty quick process, but obviously I found out he was going and the offer came not too much longer after and it was kind of obvious at that point,” he said about committing yesterday.
Payton has a chance to come in and play that same kind of role Champagnie held the past two seasons. He likes to work close the rim and rebound, but has an evolving jump shot he believes can be effective.
“I play hard,” Payton said of what he will bring to the Pitt team next season. “I rebound really well and I finish around the rim really well. I’m working on my jump shot and trying to make it better and more reliable.
I can hit three’s when necessary, but not necessarily something I rely on. I feel like you can put me in any defensive situation and I’ll be able to function. I can guard a lot of different positions and I can also play a lot of different positions on offense, so I just think the versatility and being able to do anything the team needs.”