With six open scholarships entering April, Pitt men’s basketball coach Jeff Capel had any number of holes to fill on a roster that, even at full strength, mustered just an 11-21 record last season.
That effort is off to a good start. On April Fools’ Day, the Panthers picked up a player that’s no joke.
Nelly Cummings – a Midland native, Lincoln Park graduate and Colgate transfer – has committed to Pitt, he announced Friday.
I’m Backkk ???????? #H2P pic.twitter.com/O0lTbiAYEE
— Nelly Cummings (@Ambition___0) April 1, 2022
A six-foot, 180-pound guard, Cummings averaged a team-high 14.7 points per game during the 2021-22 season for a Colgate team that made the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive season. His production earned him a spot on the all-Patriot League first team.
He has one season of eligibility remaining. As a graduate transfer, he’ll be immediately eligible.
“Being around the coaching staff and the players, I really felt that family vibe that I like,” Cummings said. “The coaching staff, they’re really detail-oriented and focused on winning. The players, they’re all really hungry for winning. That’s an important piece to be able to do the things we’re going to have to try to do. We all have to be united on a common goal, and that common goal is to win. I felt that energy throughout my visit and hanging out with the guys.”
Cummings should bolster a Panthers backcourt that has suffered a handful of losses to this point in the offseason. He’s not a prototypical point guard, as his 3.4 assists per game last season marked the first time in his career he averaged more than 1.8 and his assist rate was third on his own team (he would have ranked second on Pitt, behind Femi Odukale). He’s a relatively reliable shooter for a team that needs one, though. He has shot at least 36% from 3-point range in his past three college seasons despite being a high-volume shooter, with at least 4.3 3 attempts per game in each of those seasons.
At Lincoln Park, Cummings was the 2017 Post-Gazette player of the year and a two-time Fabulous Five selection. At the time, his 2,411 career points ranked him fifth on the WPIAL all-time scoring list, ahead of some of the most talented players to ever come from the region – T.J. McConnell, Danny Fortson and Terrelle Pryor, among others. With that individual success came team success, as the Leopards went 103-16 and made two state championship game appearances in Cummings’ time at the school.
He began his college career at Bowling Green before transferring after a freshman season in which he averaged 3.6 points in 13.2 minutes per game. At Colgate, he quickly became an impact player at the low-major level, averaging at least 10.8 points per game in his three seasons at the Hamilton, N.Y. school.
Last season, he fared well against major-conference opposition, with 19 points in a loss at N.C. State, 18 points and seven assists in a win at Syracuse – Colgate’s first win against the Orange since the early 1960s – and 20 points, six rebounds and six assists in an NCAA tournament loss to Wisconsin. Playing against some of his future teammates last season in a 71-68 loss last December at Pitt, Cummings had 17 points despite a subpar five-of-14 shooting performance.
After getting Jamarius Burton last year from Texas Tech, Pitt now has another player in Cummings who has experience on winning teams, something that could be critical for a program that has been mired by losing for much of the past six seasons.
Upon entering the transfer portal, Cummings had been contacted by a number of major-conference suitors, a group that, according to ESPN, included Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Clemson, N.C. State, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Washington and Georgia Tech.
“Coach Capel talked a lot about him wanting to have that connection with his point guard and me being able to be that extension of him on the court,” Cummings said. “That’s a huge thing for me. I really want to be able to be that lead guard. I’m experienced. I know how to win. I want to make sure that my teammates trust me and they have the trust in me to allow me to be who I am here and really just provide that scoring, that assisting and that winning. Whatever winning takes, I’m going to provide that.”
Even with Cummings, Pitt still has a number of needs. Though Cummings will likely occupy one of the starting guard positions, his new team will still need help down low for big man John Hugley, some more wings and, even with Cummings, more shooters.
Cummings’ commitment to the Panthers comes in the same week that his younger brother Brandin, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard at Lincoln Park, picked up an offer from Pitt. The younger Cummings also has offers from Creighton, South Carolina and Duquesne, among others.
It’s an offer the elder Cummings never received coming out of high school. He told the Post-Gazette in December — ahead of Colgate’s game at Pitt — that he had been in frequent contact with then-Pitt assistant Brandin Knight, but Knight and then-head coach Jamie Dixon left for different jobs in 2016 and a chance to suit up for the Panthers never materialized.
Once he entered the transfer portal last month and Capel immediately reached out, the pull to his hometown school was too strong to ignore. For a player whose first AAU event ever was at the Petersen Events Center and who can easily recall the Panthers’ importance in the city when they were at their zenith more than a decade ago, it’s a decision that came relatively easily.
“This is one of the most full-circle things for me, where I literally was in the gym with Sam Young playing in workouts and one-on-one drills with these guys,” Cummings said. “For me, I remember exactly what it felt like then as a kid. I just wished, ‘Man, I would love to be a Pitt player.’ Throughout the years and my career going where it has, I’ve seen how bad the city still wants that. I feel like it’s really important for me and my journey and my story to come home and bring that back. That’s my goal.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: April 1, 2022, 3:36 p.m.
