The process through which Gerald Drumgoole worked to fully recover from an ankle injury he suffered just four games into Pitt’s 2019-20 season can sometimes be difficult to properly describe.
“Long” is a starting point. That only provides so much of a picture, though. Already charged with having to get acclimated to the highest level of college basketball, Drumgoole could no longer face that challenge as his full, healthy self. Even once he was healed, he was working hard merely to catch up, almost like being forced onto a treadmill set at a full sprint immediately after standing still.
It made his first season in college basketball a demanding one that would appear disappointing if stripped of any sort of context. Drumgoole finished the season averaging 1.2 points and 1.1 rebounds in 8.9 minutes per game, all of which ranked him ninth on the team and at the bottom of the Panthers’ rotation.
Those numbers, however, exist beyond a stat sheet, something with which the 6-foot-5 wing is quite familiar. He also knows what it is he overcame, which informs him as much as anything as he looks back at his freshman season and where it is he can go from here.
“It was kind of tough,” Drumgoole said. “It pushed me back during the whole season. I had a lot to get over. I had to worry about my ankle injury and also worry about how I’m going to get back on the court at the same time. It was just a lot and it took a long process. I just had to be patient with it.”
Drumgoole’s high-ankle sprain, which occurred during a weekend practice in mid-November, set a clear line of demarcation, one that helped divide his season into distinct, easily identifiable chapters.
The first of those was the most exciting. A Rochester, N.Y. native who played high school ball at national powerhouse La Lumiere in Indiana, Drumgoole was the most highly touted member of Pitt’s 2019 recruiting class, ranked 117th in his class nationally by 247 Sports (becoming coach Jeff Capel’s third top-150 prospect in his tenure). That promise immediately translated. Heading into the 2019-20 season, coaches and teammates alike spoke positively about what they saw from him and when it came time for the Panthers’ first game — a 63-61 victory against a Florida State team that went on to win the ACC regular season championship — Drumgoole started, the only freshman to do so.
His production in those first four games was modest — 1.3 points and 1.8 rebounds per game — and his minutes dwindled in the final two of those contests, but he was working to establish a role. That effort was derailed with an injury that sidelined him for six weeks, a stretch that covered eight games. High-ankle sprains can be unpredictable, leading to any number of proclamations of uncertainty about when it was he might be able to return.
Once it came time for that, it wasn’t as simple as stepping on the court again. He had to get reacquainted with the pace of the game, something many young players struggle with coming out of high school. His conditioning had to get to where it had been previously. There was also the mental side to it, fearing that one slightly askew cut or landing could undo all the progress he had made.
“Over time, you get adjusted to it,” Drumgoole said. “But the thought is still there.”
Gradually, he found his way back. He appeared in 17 of Pitt’s final 21 games, playing seven minutes or fewer in 10 of those contests. In the seven games in which he played more than seven minutes, he averaged 1.7 points, up from the 0.5 points per game he averaged in the other 10 games, but he struggled with his shot, making only three of his 19 field-goal attempts (15.8%).
Finding a sense of rhythm in those games was often a challenge.
“It was definitely difficult,” Drumgoole said. “It took a lot of patience and hard work. Now, you have to commit yourself to the game even more and take even more time out to take care of yourself and your body. I would just say it was a long process.”
In the season’s final stretch, Drumgoole found the comfort he so desperately sought. To him, it began with a Feb. 15 loss at Virginia Tech. He went scoreless in 12 minutes that night, but something started to feel different. Three nights later, he matched a season high with 19 minutes in a loss at Florida State, a game in which he had two points, two rebounds and two assists. He wasn’t particularly productive, but he was in the flow of the game and showcased in spurts his ability as a playmaker.
In some ways, Drumgoole stands as a tricky player to evaluate.
The awkward timing of his ankle injury and the effect it had on everything that followed means his freshman season comes with a bit of an asterisk, but that doesn’t negate what are obvious areas of improvement for him. Last season, he shot just 18.4% overall, 12.5% from 3-point range and 53.3% from the free-throw line. Drumgoole had elicited praise for his shooting leading up to the season and on a team whose season was torpedoed by, among other things, a lack of consistent outside shooting, his shortcomings in that area — to say nothing of his teammates’ — became more noticeable.
Drumgoole draws confidence from where he was early in the season, knowing his coaches thought enough of him to give him a start in his first college game. Since the season ended, encouragement from his coaches has remained consistent.
“They tell me to keep working because they know the potential I have,” he said. “They tell me to just keep doing what I do and whenever I get out on the court, be confident in myself.”
Like many of his other teammates, he sees signs of hope and encouragement for the 2020-21 season, both for himself and his team as a whole.
He spoke effusively of the Panthers’ young talent, which will include the addition of a top-20 recruiting class, along with an eligible transfer in Ithiel Horton. There’s whatever impact that infusion of skilled players can provide in games, of course, but perhaps more important is the depth it will potentially create, something that Drumgoole believes will make Pitt’s practices that much more constructive. The kinship between himself and his teammates has taken on a different form the past week, as they’ve communicated with each other about the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the protests against police brutality that have followed.
Personally, he’s hoping to be more of a playmaker, someone who can contribute more, even when he’s not scoring. If he’s able to do that, and his team rises alongside him, his freshman season and everything that came with it could stand as a distant memory.
“Over time, I just feel like I can help this program be the best it can be,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of talent. I’ve got teammates where they can help me become the best player I want to be, too. We push each other. We’re looking to take this thing ahead, like how it used to be.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: June 5, 2020, 11:00 a.m.
