There may be a silver lining to losing recruit Walter Walters, a 6’9″ center from Detroit. Since Howland left for UCLA, and took assistant coach Ernie Ziegler with him, Walters changed his mind about attending Pitt. Our loss? Sure, although he has yet to qualify academically.
The up side for Pitt is we already have 3 other big men coming to Pitt next year – Chris Taft, Dante Milligan and Aaron Gray, all top 100 center/forwards in their own rights, AND all academic qualifiers. New coach Jamie Dixon didn’t have any scholarships to spare, but now he can go out and try for a backup point guard. Carl Krauser will start now the Brandin Knight has graduated, but as of now there is no adequate backup PG. Maybe we can get a JUCO transfer?
[…] While on the subject of Graves, it is interesting to recall the circumstances of how he got to Pitt (since that has been a question recently). Pitt had a commit from Walter Walters out of Detroit. He was struggling to qualify academically, and with the change in coaches, bailed in August 2003. This opened the door for Pitt to recruit a back-up point guard for Pitt. Especially with a recruiting class that had two big men in Taft and Gray and a forward in Dante Milligan. […]
