Men's College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Pittsburgh Panthers

The college basketball season is just over two weeks away — time is just flying by. To get you ready for the season, I’m previewing the season in men’s college basketball, team by team. In these previews I will highlight key departures, additions, returners and overall DFS viability for each team. These previews will be heavily focused on DFS and fantasy in general, so keep that in mind when I’m talking about the relevancy of a player or team rotations.

We kick things off with the ACC, a conference that severely underperformed in the pandemic-impacted season last year. While the conference will inevitably have a handful of DFS staples for us to use each slate, it still seems like the ACC lost more talent than it was able to gain. With the transfer rules changing after March Madness ended it ultimately led to what was essentially free agency in CBB. There were coaching changes as well which I will talk about throughout this breakdown because new philosophies will mean new strategies for our DFS builds.

In this one, Pittsburgh.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Pittsburgh Panthers 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 10-12 (6-10 ACC), 12th in ACC
Postseason: None

Key Departures | Pittsburgh Panthers

Justin Champagnie (left for NBA)
Xavier Johnson (transferred to Indiana)
Au’Diese Toney (transferred to Arkansas)
Abdoul Karim Coulibaly (transferred to St. Bonaventure)
Terrell Brown (transferred to San Diego)
Gerald Drumgoole (transferred to Albany)

Key Additions | Pittsburgh Panthers

Jamarius Burton (transferred from Texas Tech)
Mo Gueye (transferred from Stony Brook)
Daniel Oladapo (transferred from Oakland)

Returners | Pittsburgh Panthers

Ithiel Horton (8.9 PPG/2.3 RPG/2.2 APG)
Femi Odukale (6.6 PPG/2.5 RPG/2.2 APG)
Nike Sibande (6.9 PPG/3 RPG/1.5 APG)
John Hugley (5.1 PPG/4.3 RPG)

Pittsburgh Panthers Outlook for 2021-2022

I’m not going to even try and sugarcoat things: This roster is rough, and I think we will be talking more about targeting against them all season then we are about rostering their actual players. Losing Justin Champagnie, Xavier Johnson and Au’Diese Toney is backbreaking. Jeff Capel wasn’t able to take advantage of the influx of talent in the transfer portal which has to be disappointing for the fanbase. Jamarius Burton has a chance to be an impactful player for this team, but he recently underwent a knee procedure and will miss the first 4-6 weeks of the season. Ouch. Mo Gueye and Daniel Oladapo were both productive players at their previous stops so the hope is they can step into the ACC and contribute at the very least. Gueye is the America East Defensive POY so he can be a much-needed banger for the Panthers but that probably won’t translate to fantasy points unfortunately. Rising sophomore Femi Odukale is the player to watch. He turned it on in the last 3 games of the season which culminated in a 28-6-3-1-1 game against Miami in a loss in the ACC tournament. He will probably be extremely cheap on DFS sites when the season starts and could be a really sneaky play initially. Ithiel Horton and super senior Nike Sibande will be thrust into larger roles with the Panthers best 3 players gone. Horton struggled with consistency the first month or two of the season after being a 13 PPG scorer at Delaware during his freshman season. However, things started clicking for him around midseason and he turned himself into a reliable scorer that shot almost 40% from distance in ACC play.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

Jeff Capel was a recruiting magician during his time at Oklahoma and Duke, but he just hasn’t shown that same prowess at Pitt. It’s pretty concerning that his three best players all decided to bolt at the end of the season, and it seems there very well could be some sort of disconnect between Capel and his players. This is shaping up to be a lame-duck season in Pitt, but I still think there is some fantasy value with this group. We will have a clearer picture after the first few weeks of the season but as of now I’m buying stock in Odukale and Horton.