Pitt’s basketball program is staring at a very different financial picture, and the numbers are enough to turn heads across the sport.
According to a report by CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander and Isaac Trotter, the Panthers spent somewhere between $12.1 million and $15 million on NIL this season. That puts Pitt in Tier 4 of the Power 5 spending report and firmly among the bigger spenders in the ACC.
The Panthers are above the conference’s $11.9 million average roster cost, and Norlander and Trotter listed them as having more buying power than 12 league opponents, including Cal, Clemson, Florida State, NC State and Syracuse.
That kind of outlay comes after a long lag in Pitt’s adjustment to the NIL era. When players first began profiting from their name, image and likeness at the start of the decade, Pitt was slower than many programs to respond. Alliance 412 followed shortly after as the school’s collective, but the landscape has since changed again with revenue sharing, which allows schools to distribute up to $21.58 million in various streams of revenue to student-athletes.
For Pitt, the spending is tied directly to a reset on the roster. Jeff Capel’s team kept only one player from last season, sophomore guard Macari Moore, who filled a reserve role and was not a major contributor.
The rest of the roster was rebuilt almost from scratch. Pitt brought in 11 transfers and two freshmen to fill its 14 scholarship spots, mixing higher-end additions with players brought in to plug holes across the lineup.
The transfer group includes several players with Power 5 backgrounds. Among the ACC arrivals are seniors Nait George, Baye Ndongo and Akir Souare, all of whom previously played at Georgia Tech. Junior guard Jalil Bethea, a five-star recruit in the 2024 class, has already played at Miami and Alabama and now gets a much larger opportunity at Pitt as a junior.
The Panthers also added juniors Dominique Diomande, who has been at Washington and BYU, and Jonathan Powell, who has played for North Carolina and West Virginia.
There’s depth from the mid-major ranks, too. Pitt brought in junior guard Colin Hawkins from Gardner-Webb, Russian sophomore forward Timofei Rudovskii from Bryant, senior center Armani Mighty from Mercer, fifth-year guard A'lahn Sumler from Charleston Southern and junior forward Kraig Gilbert, who comes from Division II Concord in Athens, W.Va.
The incoming class also includes four-star recruits Chase Foster and Jermal Jones Jr., both from IMG Academy, giving the Panthers a pair of Class of 2026 additions.
The push comes after a sharp decline on the court. Pitt made the NCAA Tournament in 2022-23 for the first time since 2016 and then followed with back-to-back 24-win seasons in 2023-24. But the Panthers missed the NCAA Tournament in 2024, then slipped to 17-15 in 2024-25 and 13-20 last season.
Capel received a contract extension after the 2023-24 season that runs through 2030, but there was real internal thought about moving on after last year. His buyout was around $15 million, and instead of paying that, athletic director Allen Greene and the school chose to keep Capel in place and invest the money in the roster.
That makes this season a clear inflection point. Pitt has spent heavily, overhauled the roster and given Capel the kind of resources the program had been late to embrace. If it doesn’t pay off, it could be the final year of his run in Pittsburgh.
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Pitt Faces A Brutal Test At No. 1 Miami After Recent Slide
Pittsburgh heads into a daunting ACC road trip with little margin for error, heading to No. 1 Miami after dropping its last two conference games. The Panthers were unbeaten early, but the recent slide has changed the tone around the matchup, while the Hurricanes have stayed perfect at 6-0 and just survived a tight overtime battle with Florida State.
Miamis offense has been driven by Darian Mensah, whose efficiency has helped keep the Hurricanes on top of the rankings and in control of the league race. For Pitt, the challenge is obvious: slow a first-place team that has yet to lose, and do it in a hostile setting where Miami will be pushing for a cleaner finish than it needed last week. [Read more 🡒]