Okay, maybe not exclusively, but I definitely expect to see it more then once this season. Definitely a ton of 4-guard rotations.

Plus, a Jeff Capel puff piece.

In recent radio interviews, Capel has stressed he won’t just look to add bodies. Which means, despite a glaring need for more in the frontcourt, he’s not going to reach for a player if he can’t help this year. After missing out on traditional transfer Sacha Killeya-Jones (he went with NC State), Pitt didn’t waste much time.

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Sorry. One of those weeks where I am everywhere but home.

As much as I wasn’t enamored with Marcus Carr as a true point guard by the end of the year, the fact was he was the only option. And he was just a freshman. And, given the upheaval, he was someone Pitt and Jeff Capel wanted to keep.

But from the moment he got his release, major conference teams came calling. Him not coming back was unsurprising. Just annoying at how long he took to make that decision.

Thankfully, the annoyance was short-lived.

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Pitt has hired it’s new Women’s Basketball Coach.

University of Pittsburgh Director of Athletics Heather Lyke announced Wednesday afternoon the hiring of Lance White as head women’s basketball coach.

“When I first met Coach White, his genuine personality, energy and excitement about being at Pitt was evident and contagious,” Lyke said. “He has a tremendous pedigree in coaching and has been an instrumental part of several successful women’s basketball programs that have sustained success at the highest levels. I am confident he is more than prepared to build a program that brings great pride to our University.  We are thrilled to welcome Lance and his wife, Melanie, and their children to Pittsburgh and the Pitt family.”

White comes to Pitt after spending the past 15 years at Florida State, where he helped the Seminoles to a 350-145 (.707) record, including 12 seasons with 20 wins or more. Since White’s arrival at FSU, 10 players were selected in the WNBA Draft, eight Seminoles earned ACC All-Defensive team honors and 37 earned all-conference awards. He helped Florida State reach the NCAA Tournament in 13 of the past 14 years, while the team won at least one NCAA Tournament game in its past 15 appearances. For his standout coaching efforts during the 2016-17 season, White was named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association National Assistant (WBCA) Coach of the Year.

White was also an assistant coach at Texas Tech before FSU. Texas Tech is also his alma mater.

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Been quite a bit of stuff for Pitt football with some coaching changes and the final signing day looming. Not going to get to them all, but I’ll touch on yesterday’s news.

Pitt grabbed a new assistant and a grad transfer from MAC schools yesterday. Both seem like good additions.

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Last week was a surprisingly active week for Pitt football. Players left the program and it’s time to find a new coordinator.

After the early signing period, Pitt was over the 85 scholarship player. That meant transfers were on the way. It was just a matter of who and when.

That day came on Friday.

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It’s been a while, I know.

The first early signing period in college football is only a couple days away. December 20 is the day Pitt and most other programs (that haven’t been through a major spin on the coaching carousel) look to have 90% or so of their recruiting class complete.

The last couple weeks have brought a bit of shake-up to the expected 2018 roster. Some expected. Some not.

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This is so stupid.

It has been seven weeks since Cam Johnson made it known that he was transferring from Pitt as a grad transfer with two full years of eligibility left. To no one’s surprise the process of finding a new home has been a slow one.

A long-armed, tall guard who shoots better then 40% on 3s. From a Power conference. He was going to be in demand. And he was. Teams like Arizona, Kentucky, Oregon and others all contacted him. He took plenty of visits.

It was clear that Johnson was looking to play at a big name school where he would get plenty of exposure.

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I don’t know about you, but I needed to do a refresher on Pitt’s scholarship roster before even talking about the remaining recruiting stuff.

Returning players:

Ryan Luther, Forward, Senior

Jonathan Milligan, Guard, Senior

Zach Smith, Guard, Senior

Incoming freshmen:

Marcus Carr, Guard

Khameron Davis, Guard

Shamiel Stevenson, Small Forward

Terrell Brown, Power Forward

Peace Ilegomah, Center

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So the  two weeks have been close to positive for Pitt basketball and coach Kevin Stallings. Or at least as good as it’s been since the season ended.

No one else left, a couple coaches hired, a NLI signed and now a transfer. Let’s review.

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Sorry about the gap in posting. As usual, I put off doing the taxes until the final week. And naturally, that coincided with a crunch week of 12-hour work days.

There’s not much to really write about what is happening in Pitt basketball at the moment. Pitt is pursuing transfers — grad and regular — visits are on the table. Yet, it doesn’t seem like anything is happening. Even as it also feels like a period of total chaos and a desperate need for something. Anything to happen.

The team for next year will not have one returning starter. A recruiting class that is seven–deep, and it still isn’t enough. There are still rumors of at least one more possible transfer out of the program. I mean, at least it isn’t Memphis, but this is still a mess (or as Pat Forde put it as an aside in a column about this year’s coaching hire — “blooming disaster”).

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Well, so much for an impromptu vacation.

You know it’s bad news when a press release is e-mailed out at 5:30 on a Saturday morning:

Redshirt sophomore Cameron Johnson will graduate and transfer following the spring semester school officials announced Saturday morning. The Moon Township, Pa., native will earn his degree in three years at Pitt and have two season of eligibility remaining after receiving a medical redshirt for the 2014-15 season

Johnson averaged 11.9 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game a year ago as the Panthers finished 16-17 overall and 4-14 in ACC play. A two-time All-ACC Academic Team and a 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-District selection, Johnson finished fifth in the ACC in three-point percentage (.415) and eighth in three-point field goals (2.36 3pg.).

Pitt currently has a seven-player recruiting class featuring highly-touted junior college prospects Jared Wilson-Frame and Troy Simons and high school standouts Aaron Thompson, Marcus Carr, Terrell Brown, Peace Ilegomah and  Shamiel Stevenson. The Panthers have additional scholarships available and will look to reshape the 2017-18 roster with graduate transfers, traditional transfers and late signees. Johnson will become the fourth player to transfer out of the program since the close of the 2016-17 season.

Man, I hadn’t even gotten the coffee made when I saw this. Probably a good thing, when you don’t want to do a spit-take on your phone.

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That will be the question Cam Johnson, Ryan Luther and Pitt fans will be asking. The Pitt basketball roster continues to, um, evolve.

Freshman Corey Manigault and sophomore Crisshawn Clark will transfer out of the University of Pittsburgh basketball program school officials announced Tuesday. Both players are expected to finish the spring semester and leave the school in good academic standing.

“We wish Corey and Crisshawn the best of luck as they look to continue their collegiate careers elsewhere,” said head coach Kevin Stallings. “We will continue to support both of them through their impending transfers.”

Neither one is a shock.

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I can’t blame him for deciding to transfer after he gets his degree in the spring.

“Chad has been a tremendous leader and teammate during his Pitt career, and certainly during the year I had the opportunity to coach him,” Narduzzi said. “We wish him the very best and will help him any way we can as he maps out his future pursuits. We will always consider him a Pitt Man. His contributions have been invaluable to what we are building here.”

“I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to attend and play for the University of Pittsburgh,” Voytik said. “I am blessed to have met some amazing people along the way: teammates that I’ll always be friends with, coaches that made me a better player and person, and fans that offered a tremendous amount of support. Pittsburgh will always be my second home.”

I wish him nothing but the best.

Let me start by repeating something I am know I have said on Twitter, and I’m pretty sure I have said on this site. It is not conflicting or inconsistent to think:

A. Nate Peterman was the better option at QB in the offense Pitt ran this past season.

B. Chad Voytik was not given a fair chance to keep the starting QB job.

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I know, this should be nothing but football coverage at this point. But…

In the space of his two years at Pitt, Josh Newkirk went from speedy sparkplug, to the guy some wanted to supplant James Robinson at point guard, to the guy who became lost on the court, to one of the players many expected/wanted to transfer because his play had fallen so far, to “oh, he had an injury, that explains it.”

In May, we finally learned how bad his injury really was. He needed microfracture surgery on his left knee.

Microfracture surgery is still such an emerging surgical technique for athletes after an injury. In some ways it is akin to UCL (Tommy John) surgery in the 80s. It works, but the recovery rates and level of recovery from where the player was, vary greatly.

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Pitt’s fall training camp starts today with the player’s reporting in from their time off-campus where they were tasked with finding a spot for the next new Pitt Stadium.  Serious on-field stuff won’t begin until tomorrow however when the staff and team can get on the field and start getting familiar with the new crop of players and reacquainted with the physical side of actual football.

Just as a point of info here is how the practice days will be conducted in general. A typical single practice day will go like this:

Coach Narduzzi Briefing: 9:25 a.m.

Practice Viewing/Photography Window: 9:55-10:25 a.m.

Closed practice from 10:25 until 12:15

Interviews: 12:15 p.m. (select players and assistants)

This is what we’ll see when Tuesday’s Media Day rolls around and  I’ll be up there for those sessions (more on that later):

Practice Viewing/Photography Window: 9:55-10:25 a.m.

Coach Narduzzi Press Conference: 1:30 p.m. (second floor team room)

Team Interview and Photo Session: 2:45-4 p.m. 

Some interesting things to note is that in all of the allowed two-a-day practices the evening practice is completely closed to the media.  That makes sense as no real news will be generated between 2:30 or so until they start up again in the evening. So that is the logistics behind the next three weeks of camp.

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