The 3-2-1 Column: A big weekend, four-star recruits, Hinson's return & more
In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about the big official visit weekend, four-star visitors, Blake Hinson's return, Pitt's centers and a lot more.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
The first big weekend
We’ve all been looking forward to this for about 11 months, and it’s finally happening.
June.
Official visits.
Recruiting.
Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal.
Last year, June produced 16 commitments, and while that was a high-water mark, it has been this way for years. June has always been the Big Month in recruiting. That was true even when the February Signing Day was the centerpiece event on the recruiting calendar - even back then, there was always a lot of action in June.
But things kicked into high gear five years ago. For the longest time, the rule was that a recruit could only take official visits after his senior year started.
In 2018, though, things changed when the NCAA allowed recruits to take official visits in the spring and summer. All of a sudden, June’s high-density recruiting went into overdrive, and Pitt made the most of it. Nine recruits committed that month, almost all of them during the Father’s Day Massacre on June 17.
The next year was even bigger. 32 recruits came to campus for official visits and 14 of them committed.
There were no visits in the summer of 2020 due to the pandemic, but the action came back with a vengeance the next year: 29 recruits visited in June 2021 and nine of them committed. And last year things hit a peak with 35 official visits and 16 commitments.
Now, not all 16 of those recruits signed with Pitt. Four decommitted before the end of the cycle, and that continued a trend. Of the 48 recruits who committed on their official visits in June since 2018, 12 have ended up signing with other schools.
So we’ll keep that in mind going forward, but for now, it’s just about the fun and excitement of getting a bunch of commitments. And beyond the immediate buzz of landing new recruits, there are long-term implications here: of the 69 recruits who signed with Pitt in the classes of 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 - the years when recruits could take June official visits - 36 of them committed during or immediately after their June official visits.
That’s more than half of the total commits in those four classes, so this month is likely to produce a significant portion of the ultimate class that Pitt signs in December.
This year is a little unique in that Pitt is coming into June with nearly a dozen commitments already in hand. But it’s not unreasonable to expect the coaches to land something in the neighborhood of 7-9 guys this month. I won’t be surprised at all if we get to the end of June and Pitt is sitting on 20 commitments.
Not all 20 of those will stick, but that’s probably right in the range where the class will be a month from now.
Between now and then, there are going to be some wild days - days where Pat Narduzzi’s Twitter account sends one #PITTISIT tweet after another.
Chances are, we’re going to start seeing those rolling on Saturday, so buckle up and get ready.
The big stars
We all have a complicated relationship with stars, I think.
On one hand, you want to see Pitt get a recruiting class full of four and five-star prospects because, let’s be honest, stars look good and usually line up with strong on-field performance.
On the other hand, Pitt probably isn’t going to get a recruiting class full of four and five-star prospects because, let’s be honest, that just doesn’t happen.
So you pine for stars while also saying that stars don’t matter and that the coaches have an eye for the kinds of players who fit the system.
Personally, I think it’s okay to have it both ways. But stars are pretty, and when you’re looking at the official visit list for this weekend, that’s probably where your eyes are drawn.
To these guys:
That’s an impressive trio, and while I think a number of the three-star visitors are pretty good prospects, too, we’ll obviously be keeping a big focus on Williams, Marsh and Rudolph.
Williams stands out to me the most. He’s a top-30 outside linebacker prospect in the class and a four-star recruit at a position where Pitt needs to keep stockpiling talent.
Williams visited Pitt this spring, and I think that was a turning point in his recruitment - or, at the very least, in his recruitment by the Panthers. He was interested in Pitt before the visit, but it was eye-opening, from what he told me.
“I was surprised by it. I really was,” Williams said after the visit. “The coaches kept saying I had to come see it, and then once I saw it - you know, sometimes you don’t know what to expect, but then you get there and it beats your expectations. Pitt was definitely like that. I see what people see in Pitt to have them high on the list.”
(Before we proceed, I think it’s really interesting to see the overlap between Williams’ comments there and the comments Jeff Capel has made about how important visits are when it comes to breaking certain perceptions of Pitt and Pittsburgh. But I digress.)
Marsh is pretty interesting. He was committed to Michigan State from last July until early March. A month after he decommitted, he announced a top 12 of Auburn, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, Penn State, UCLA, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Michigan, Oregon and Maryland.
The obvious omission there is Pitt, and the Panthers weren’t really connected to Marsh until late last week when he announced his plans to take an official visit.
That’s a quick turn of events, and it definitely makes Marsh a recruit to watch. As far as we know, he’s got a few more official visit scheduled - Penn State, Kansas, Michigan State and possibly Auburn are on the docket - and while I would assume he’ll take more, the shifting nature of his recruitment seems to leave open a lot of possibilities. We’ll see what happens.
As for Rudolph, he’s coming to Pitt this weekend from Deerfield Beach, Fla., but he has only been in the Sunshine State for a few months. He’s originally from Cincinnati, and he has had Pitt as a top option dating back at least to Christmas when he announced a top 10 that included the Panthers.
This will be Rudolph’s first official visit, with trips to Michigan, Miami and Ohio State also on deck. That’s tough competition, to be sure, but Pitt certainly has a lot of appeal - or should have a lot of appeal - for defensive end recruits.
It’s actually kind of interesting to note that pretty much all of Pitt’s productive defensive ends over the last five years were two or three-star recruits. Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver were both criminally underrated as two-stars, and while the trend could break this season with former four-stars like Dayon Hayes and Nahki Johnson, the Panthers are largely survived on lower-rated ends.
Getting some top-tier talent like Rudolph could take a position of strength and kick it up a notch.
Will Pitt land Williams, Marsh and/or Rudolph this weekend? That’s tough to say. They’re all priorities - the Panthers really need linebackers and receivers, as we know - but it’s hard to predict that three four-star prospects with multiple scheduled official visits will pull the trigger right now.
Then again, it’s June. You can’t rule anything out.
The big return
We all have spent - and continue to spend - so much time talking about transfers and recruits and who Jeff Capel and company have added to the roster, but the biggest personnel move this offseason wasn’t a move at all.
It was Blake Hinson coming back.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but this team would look a whole lot different if Hinson had decided to stay in the NBA Draft process and not return to the Panthers for his final season. In fact, I think you could remove any of the other 11 scholarship players currently projected to be on the 2023-24 roster and it wouldn’t have the same impact as removing Hinson.
That goes for Dior Johnson. That goes for Federiko Federiko. That goes for either Diaz Graham twin.
It goes for Zack Austin and Ishmael Leggett, too.
They’re all important, but none of them is as important as Hinson.
Last season, I took to calling Hinson the x-factor: he was the player whose individual presence on the court, both in his scoring and in his energy, had the biggest impact on the team’s success.
There were a lot of leaders on last year’s team, a lot of contributors and a lot of impact players. But when Hinson was hot, the team fed off of it. Bringing him back - and his three-point shooting, and his energy - was key for this year’s team.
The shooting is a big part of it, of course. There were only two players in college basketball last year who averaged 15 points and six rebounds per game while making at least 95 three-pointers, and Hinson was one of them.
That’s a lot of production to replace if he had left, and the truth is, I have some questions about the scoring punch the 2023-24 Panthers will have even with him. I think the coaches are looking for a balanced attack across five - or at least four - positions; they don’t have a Greg Elliott-type of sniper, but they seem to believe that Leggett and Austin and the freshmen can complement Hinson in making shots from outside.
Johnson should be able to create shots, so that will be a boost, but overall, I’m kind of taking a wait-and-see approach to determine what this team’s offensive attack will look like. It will be different, of course, but it remains to be seen if stylistic changes can produce the same or greater results.
Losing Hinson from the mix would have made that challenge even more, well, challenging. Returning him gives the team a central core, a potent foundation on which to build.
Then there’s the off-court factor. I am personally of the mind that there’s value in returning just about any player from last year’s roster. So much of that team’s success came from its team-first mindset, the ability, willingness and desire of the players to put the team above all else. It was arguably the single biggest difference between that team and Capel’s first four squads, and I think it really did make all the difference in the team’s success.
A big part of that mentality left with Nelly Cummings, Jamarius Burton, Nike Sibande and Greg Elliott. That makes the return of Hinson - as well as the returns of Federiko Federiko and the Diaz graham - that much more important. Pitt needs “mindset linkage” in the form of older players who set certain standards and expectations and pass those down to the younger players.
With a team that will rely heavily on freshmen, having guys like Hinson around is huge.
From pretty much every angle, the news of Hinson’s return carried a serious impact for the Pitt program.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
Who are the big men?
We know who they are, but the better question might be, how will they be used?
So much of the conversation this offseason has been about the back court: the incoming freshman guards, the returning freshman guard, the possible transfer additions at guard.
The front court hasn’t gotten as much attention, aside from the occasional mention that “They need another rebounder.”
I’ve already said that I think this year’s Pitt team could be a better rebounding squad than last year, due largely to the rebounding abilities of the two transfer additions.
Still, I think there’s an interesting conversation to have about the bigs on the projected roster, particularly after Pitt landed four-star center prospect Papa Kante last week.
How does Kante fit in with the other bigs? And how will the group be used overall?
I think we can all agree that Federiko Federiko is the starter. The real questions are behind - and around - him.
From where I’m sitting, Guillermo Diaz Graham is still the No. 2 center. I know Papa Kante has the star ranking and the pedigree, but Diaz Graham has played a year of college basketball and showed quite a bit of improvement and promise in that year. He also showed a propensity for offense, which I’m not sure Kante is going to have a lot of in his freshman year.
Kante will come in with defense and rebounding being his biggest strengths. Those are good things to have, for sure, but I don’t know how much he’s going to provide in the way of offense (in that way, he’s probably a bit like what Federiko was this past season).
So from my view, I think Federiko starts, Guillermo backs him up and Kante plays as the third center. And that doesn’t necessarily mean Kante will see two minutes or less per game; having him in the No. 3 role means that if Federiko picks up two quick fouls in a half, Jeff Capel has the option of going with Guillermo and Kante the rest of the way rather than trying to work Jorge Diaz Graham in at center or playing Federiko with two fouls.
If Kante does nothing else this coming season other than fill that role - depth when Federiko or Guillermo gets into foul trouble (or gets hurt) - then he will have had a productive and useful freshman year.
The starting point then, at least from my view, is Federiko-Guillermo-Kante as the three-deep at center, with Jorge backing up Blake Hinson at forward. But there are some options.
One is that both Diaz Graham brothers could play more than one position. Guillermo is a center but could play the four, and Jorge is a four but could play the three (there’s a fair amount of overlap between those two spots anyway, so it’s an easier transition).
Both of the twins will need work to elevate their play at those other positions, especially on defense, but the possibility exists and that’s relevant because if Kante is more ready than expected, he could play as the backup five, Guillermo could back up Hinson and Jorge could be the backup to Zack Austin at the three.
(Will Jeffress is in this picture somewhere, too, likely as a three/four backup.)
There are a few necessary developments for that scenario - Kante being ready to play 15-20 minutes per game; Guillermo being able to defend the four; Jorge being able to defend the three - but there are a lot of possibilities if all of those things come together.
And all of those possibilities are even worth discussing simply because of the twins. Their skill sets and versatility can really have a big impact on how this team plays in the coming season.
Does the quarterback have to be big?
Pitt’s approach with quarterbacks in this recruiting cycle has been interesting.
Frank Cignetti offered a bunch of 2024 quarterback prospects after he was hired last offseason. Their names are still all over Pitt’s offer list in the Rivals database - guys like Colin Hurley (now committed to LSU), Jake Merklinger (now committed to Tennessee), Ryan Puglisi (now committed to Georgia), Walker White (now committed to Auburn) and Judd Anderson (now committed to Miami).
After that initial wave, Cignetti settled into finding a different tier of quarterback targets for the class of 2024, and from that group, five names emerged at the top of the board. In no particular order:
Cherry committed to Duke two weeks ago, so he’s not really a target anymore, but I’m including him here because he fits the narrative.
When you look at those five quarterback prospects, I think there are a few things that stick out. The most notable one to me is size. Three of them are really tall. One is pretty tall. And one is the shortest of the group.
That’s not the only difference, because that one guy who is the shortest - Trever Jackson - is also the most athletic.
Now, I don’t want to mistake size for a lack of athleticism, and I don’t want to mistake athleticism for a lack of arm talent. The big quarterbacks in there are good athletes, and Jackson’s athleticism shouldn’t overshadow how good of a passer he is.
But if we’re boiling it down to oversimplification, that list is comprised of four big drop-back passers and one shorter dual-threat quarterback.
Again, that’s an oversimplification, but there’s some truth in it.
Is Jackson the outlier in the group? Yes, to some extent. In fact, he’s an outlier compared to the quarterbacks Cignetti has already brought to Pitt: transfers Phil Jurkovec and Christian Veilleux and freshman Ty Dieffenbach are all big guys - big enough that I’m confident saying those three plus Nate Yarnell represent the tallest group of quarterbacks I’ve seen in nearly 20 years of covering Pitt.
But I also think Cignetti is really high on Jackson. He worked out for the Pitt coaches last June and he trains with former Pitt quarterback Rod Rutherford, so Cignetti knows plenty about him and likes him a good deal.
So I guess the question here is what I said at the beginning:
Does the quarterback have to be big?
The answer is, not really. USC lists Caleb Williams at 6’1”. Florida State lists Jordan Travis at that height, too. Utah lists Cameron Rising at 6’2”. Kansas lists Jalon Daniels at 6’0” flat.
Plenty of guys who are not 6’3” or 6’4” or 6’5” are successful in college football right now. I suppose it’s to Cignetti’s credit that he’s not tying himself to one size of quarterback and is willing to consider all options.
ONE PREDICTION
Predicting the big weekend
Of course the prediction section in this week’s column had to be about the official visit weekend, right?
I feel like I don’t have a choice on this one.
At the same time, I don’t have a strong sense of who Pitt might land this weekend. We’ve got 13 confirmed official visitors; almost all of them have additional visits scheduled, and the ones who don’t have dates booked have said they plan to visit more schools.
Now, we’ve seen plenty of examples when guys come into their official visit with more visits planned, only to change those plans and commit. We’ve seen it with recruits who commit to Pitt and cancel their other visits, and we’ve seen it with recruits who commit elsewhere and cancel their Pitt visits.
So simply having visits scheduled doesn’t totally eliminate a recruit from potentially committing. But it’s tough to look at a guy like Gabriel Williams, who has official visits scheduled to Michigan, Miami and Ohio State, and picture him committing before taking those other visits.
Still there are probably some commitment candidates in there. The three offensive linemen who are visiting could be options. Mason Lindsay wants to take a few more visits but doesn’t have anything scheduled. Jadon Lafontant does have visits scheduled - four of them, actually - but I like Pitt’s chances of landing him, possibly this weekend or later down the road. And Caleb Holmes is just outside the four-star ranking; he’s a priority for Pitt and has one other visit (Auburn) on the books.
I’m also watching Trever Jackson. He has a visit scheduled to Missouri for the end of the month and is looking to visit West Virginia and Texas A&M as well, but I could see the Pitt coaches putting a press on him to get a commitment this weekend, thereby wrapping up the quarterback recruiting for the class.
Davion Pritchard is one to keep an eye on. He’s a defensive back from nearby Austintown Fitch in Youngstown, and while he told us he is looking at other visits, it seems like Pitt is pretty high on his list. If the coaches will take him, I think the Panthers have a good shot of getting a commitment.
The real prize, of course, would be one of those three four-star prospects - Gabriel Williams, Nicholas Marsh and Elias Rudolph. I can’t go so far as to predict that Pitt will land those guys, but it’s Friday, it’s June and it’s hot, so let’s get nuts and end this column with a prediction that the Panthers will come out of the weekend with a commitment from one of those three.
I just don’t know which one.