The Pitt basketball program is coming off of its most successful season under the guidance of head coach Jeff Capel. The Panthers won 24 games and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament and did it behind a strong group of players who came to Pitt out of the transfer portal.

Capel will be looking to carry that momentum into next season and will once again look for help from the portal. The Pitt program has reached out to numerous prospects and beginning tomorrow they will host their first player out of the portal for an official visit.

Zack Austin told Panther-Lair.com he will be making it to town this weekend for an official visit to Pitt. Austin is a 6’7” wing who hit the portal after averaging 14.1 points per game for High Point this past season. Austin will have two years of eligibility remaining.

Austin is a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Capel himself is a North Carolina native, and that connection has helped set things in motion between the two parties.

“That was part of the main reasons why I decided to go to Pitt first,” Austin told Panther-Lair.com. “The relationship I have built with the staff is amazing. They’re very relatable, they know where I came from and are from the same city I grew up in.”

Austin wanted to make it to Pittsburgh first because of that connection with the coaching staff. While he is there, he is eager to see what the program and the city has to offer.

“Just seeing how Pittsburgh is as a city and how the school operates and meeting some of the players and actually meeting the coaches face to face,” Austin said of the goals he has for this visit.

In addition to Pitt, Austin said he is looking into visiting Georgetown, Texas Tech, and Loyola Marymount. At this time, he does not have any other visits finalized.

The Panthers are a team Austin caught on TV a few times during the season. He recalled Pitt’s dominant win over Northwestern and seeing the Panthers in action that day caught his attention.

“Just the way they can space the ball, shoot the ball, create, letting his players operate but at the same time in an organized fashion,” he said of Pitt’s playing style. “They’re not too reckless out there, but at the same time players have the freedom to make plays for one another.”

Austin said he does not have a defined timeline for a decision.

“I want to visit all those schools, but you never know what can happen,” he said.