KJ Marshall’s relationship with Jeff Capel began nearly a decade ago. Capel was on a recruiting visit to the Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville, N.C., but he wasn’t there to see Marshall. The then-Duke assistant was visiting Dennis Smith Jr., the state’s top high school prospect and a five-star recruit in the Class of 2016. As Capel checked in at the school’s front office, there was Marshall, an eighth grader who was waiting to be suspended.
And if you thought the threat of looming disciplinary action would compel Marshall to hide in a shell, you don’t know KJ Marshall. He made sure to deliver a recruiting pitch for himself during a brief first meeting with the future Pitt head coach.
“I told him, ‘You shouldn’t be here for him, you should be here for me.’ Funny little kid trying to make a little joke,” Marshall said. “But since that day, we made a little connection.”
It took five years, but Marshall’s insistence that Capel give him the time of day proved fruitful. Smith committed to NC State and never played a game at Duke. Meanwhile, Marshall spent three years playing under Capel at Pitt and, this season, has started a coaching career under his tutelage.
Marshall’s winding road through college basketball took him from Pittsburgh to a junior college, through Division II and back into the warm embrace of an institution and program he cares about deeply.
“A lot of people in this community, this school show a lot of love and a lot of support for me,” Marshall said. “So I’m trying to find a way to make my own mark at this university.”
Showing up and standing out
Marshall had been recruited by some Division II and low-major Division I schools, but as he continued through high school, he kept up a relationship with the Capel brothers, Jeff and Jason, who grew up in the same area Marshall did in North Carolina. It made his path to becoming a walk-on at Pitt easier.
Driven by that strong connection to Jeff Capel, Marshall battled for a spot on the roster. Upon arriving on campus in 2019, Marshall stood out with his energy and his voice. During any given practice, he wanted to be the loudest person in the gym.
His father, Keith Sr., taught him to always be a good teammate, but between words of encouragement, Marshall could be heard talking trash to players several inches taller than him with far more decorated recruiting pedigrees from the nosebleed seats at Petersen Events Center. Just because he was a walk-on didn’t mean he had to back down.
“You’ve got to find your lane, where you fit in so you can contribute to the team,” Marshall said. “A walk-on, you gotta make a mark with energy. A lot of times during practices, the energy can drop. It's human nature. You can get tired, but somebody has to be the anchor to hold everything down. I found a great niche in doing that.”
Marshall stands just 5-foot-10. He’s talented, with more than 1,000 points, two years’ worth of all-state honors and a pair of state championships on his high school resume. He’s no pushover, and the tight bonds he has with his teammates made it easier to challenge them on the court. But right as he was finding his footing at Pitt, Marshall’s college career took a turn for the worse.
Hard road back
The COVID-19 pandemic exacted its toll on the United States in a variety of ways. Even if you were spared the worst of its adverse health effects, its expanded impact derailed some part of every citizen’s life. That included Marshall, who was making his way at Pitt without a scholarship.
When the pandemic hit, the strains Marshall’s parents, Dion and Keith Sr., had already felt while supporting him, his four siblings and some extended family were exasperated. Marshall didn’t want to be a burden, so he made the difficult decision to find alternative avenues to an affordable education. That led him first to Garden City Community College in Kansas.
“It was definitely a detour that I really didn't want to take, honestly,” Marshall said.
Quickly, his time at Garden City was derailed. During the second game of the season, he collapsed on the court with heart failure. After his season was cut abruptly short, Marshall transferred again, this time to Mars Hill University in North Carolina. Less than a game into his junior year at Mars Hill, Marshall suffered a torn meniscus. This time, he fought to get back onto the court and won.
“I came back, not 100% percent healthy, but I tried,” Marshall said. “As a leader, you're going to be out there as much as possible with the guys you trained with all all preseason, so you continue to go to war with them.”
Mars Hill closed its 2021-22 season by going through two different head coaches, and as the offseason hit, Marshall was wondering what the future had in store for him. Luckily, he kept in touch with Capel while navigating stops at new schools in Kansas and North Carolina. One day during that spring of 2022, Capel asked what Marshall planned to do when the academic year was up. Marshall joked that he wanted to come back to Pittsburgh, but Capel didn’t take it as a joke.
After consulting his parents, Marshall returned to Pitt at Capel’s invitation. He was back on the roster in a familiar role as a walk-on, as vocal and energetic as ever. The pandemic, injuries and rash of coaching changes didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for college basketball, and he was grateful to be back somewhere that valued him.
“You look across the world and my situation could have been way worse, right?” Marshall said. “ At the end of the day, I'm still at school. I'm still going to play basketball every day, so like those are like the small blessings that I continue to see.
“In every situation, I’ve got a smile and a joke in my back pocket. I always come in positive mindset ... I know it sounds cliché, but that’s me. It’s real.”
New beginnings
Marshall enjoyed two seasons as a cherished part of Pitt’s roster. He helped lead the Panthers out of the tunnel before every game, walking alongside superstar sharp shooter Blake Hinson and the oversized, Pitt-branded boom box that was carried by a staff member. He built tight bonds with his teammates through competition in between the lines and love outside of them.
Marshall was rewarded for his contributions with a scholarship during the second semester of his senior year. He’ll never forget the relief he felt when he called his parents to tell them that his education would be paid for.
“It's one of the best days of my life, being able to call my parents and just let them know that I was on scholarship. To see all the sacrifices that they made for me,” he said. “It wasn’t for myself, but I was was more happy about calling my loved ones who sacrificed as much as they did for me.”
But all good things must come to an end. His long and elaborate collegiate playing career ended at the close of the 2023-24 campaign. The coaching staff had fought to get Marshall another year of eligibility back since he had missed so many games during the lone season at Garden City, but the NCAA didn’t budge, and Marshall had to decide what came next.
He knew he wanted to get into coaching, and Capel wanted to keep him within the Pitt community. So when a graduate assistant position came open last spring, he jumped at the opportunity.
These days, Marshall is up early. When he gets to Petersen Events Center, he starts his day by either cutting clips from film to show to fellow coaches or hitting the court for individual work with players. Throughout the day, he’ll have a hand in practice planning, player development and opponent scouting. He does it all while balancing graduate school work toward another degree in human resource law.
His role has changed. Marshall still practices with the team, but he’s had to do some growing up. This is the real world now, and he’s out to make a living for himself through coaching. The work may have gotten more serious, but Marshall doesn’t betray his true self. Sure, he’s had to button himself up a little bit more, but the humor and joy he brings everyday hasn’t faded.
“Yeah, he's a little bit more serious now, just because he coaches,” starting point guard Jaland Lowe said. “But KJ's still gonna be the same guy as he always is, always fun, always energetic.”
Underneath that easy-going attitude Marshall carries is a dedication to his craft. Pitt is comfortable for him right now, and the support he gets from those within the program made him who he is. But his future lies outside of Pittsburgh, and Marshall is doing all he can to prepare for the path ahead.
“I really want to be one of the greats one day,” Marshall said. “One of my goals is to be one of the youngest Division I head coaches in the country. Obviously, I'm a long, long way from there, but I'm under a great staff who I feel like has a lot of knowledge and they took a lot of time to teach me things over the past five years.
“I'm taking everything day-by-day until the opportunity presents itself. And when it does, I'll attack it with the same level of competitiveness with which I attack everything else.”
First Published: February 16, 2025, 10:30 a.m.
