University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Something to Prove: Pitt Basketball's New Roster Is Just Getting Started
6/26/2026 2:00:00 PM | General, Men's Basketball
Walk into Pitt's practice gym right now and you might not immediately know what you're looking at.
You'd hear it before you saw it — the overlap of voices, the rhythm of sneakers, someone already coaching before the drill even finishes. It feels lived-in for a men's basketball team that's barely had time to learn each other's last names.
Naithan George has pulled Macari Moore to the side, pointing out something only he caught, making sure the sophomore knows where to be. On the other end, Jonathan Powell screams for A'lahn Sumler's basket like it just sent them to the tournament.
Baye Ndongo catches a lob and throws it down, landing with so much momentum he nearly runs straight into head coach Jeff Capel. The whole gym laughs — Ndongo first, then everyone else, then Capel, who never really stopped smiling.
This is only week two of summer workouts and nobody is acting like a stranger.
For a program that just turned over nearly its entire roster — 11 transfers, two freshmen, one returning scholarship player — that kind of ease doesn't happen by accident.
"When we were adding these guys, a lot of them wanted to play together," general manager Jay Kuntz said. "They were excited, they were following it, just like a regular fan would follow it throughout this entire process of us flipping this roster."
One of those guys was Powell. A transfer from North Carolina and West Virginia before that, Powell was the second player to commit out of the portal, only behind Dominique Diomande.
He was already excited, but then as the names continued to come in — Jalil Bethea was next and George after that — that excitement only grew.
"Seeing all the pieces come in, seeing our true potential of what we can be if we all work together," Powell said. "It's been fun seeing our team process and build from the ground up."
Some of the connections run deeper than the portal.
Ndongo, George, Armani Mighty and Ibrahim Souare played AAU together. George and Souare have been teammates since high school, followed each other to Georgia Tech, then to Syracuse and now to Pittsburgh.
For George, landing in the same program as guys he's known for years didn't feel like a coincidence — it felt like something.
"It's definitely surreal," George said. "I definitely couldn't have pictured this ever, even stepping into college, because I stepped into college with my boy [Souare] and we were in high school together, so just to be with him again it means everything to me."
That built-in familiarity is visible in practice. The communication feels less like 16 guys learning each other and more like a group that's been in a gym together before. But chemistry isn't something that gets handed to you. Even with shared history, it has to be earned every day.
On one possession, Ndongo is wide open. Moore doesn't see him. Play ends. Ndongo pulls Moore to the side. A few possessions later, Moore is directing Ndongo on where to go.
They're already holding each other accountable.
"It means everything," Ndongo said. "It shows how we're buying into each other. We're not gonna BS each other. It actually means a lot, just seeing the guys just helping each other."
That transparency was one of the things Capel noticed early. There's a reason he spends so much time just watching right now.
He's going to lunch with these guys. Having them over to his house. Pulling them up to his office to sit and talk. The basketball will come — it always does — but you can't coach people you don't know.
"I'm just trying to get to know the guys," Capel said. "I'm trying to figure out who they are as young men and figure out what's the best way to push them. What's the best way to get the most out of them? Each of them has talent. They all bring something to this team that can help us be really good."
Kuntz built the roster with the same mindset. He wasn't just collecting talent. He was assembling people with something to run toward.
"Everyone that we brought in on this roster has something to prove, just like us as a staff," Kuntz said. "Really, really good players — and in their collective, a lot of them haven't won."
That hunger shows up every day in practice. But what's struck people early isn't just the edge this group carries — it's how quickly the walls have come down. In most new rosters, it takes time for people to stop performing and start just being themselves. This group didn't seem to need that runway.
Powell noticed it almost from day one.
"Usually with some groups, a lot of new faces, a lot of guys are — I don't know if it's nervous or scared to be themselves," Powell said. "But with this group, since day one, everyone has shown who they are. They're not scared to show their character. I think that's what brought us together and connected us so easily. Everybody's just being themselves."
Back on the court, Diomande doesn't let a single ball drop without a fight. He grabs his own miss off a three, the play cycles around and he finishes it with a dunk. Chase Foster is getting his hand on every rebound, taking advantage of his length by forcing turnovers. Moore chases a loose ball, pushes it ahead to Diomande, who finds Jermal Jones for the three.
Everybody celebrates like it counted.
It doesn't yet. But they're playing like it does.
That's the thread running through everything in this gym: a refusal to coast, to go through the motions, to treat a summer practice like it doesn't matter. This group didn't come to Pitt to get comfortable. They came because they haven't won yet. And they know it.
George has a word for what this group is.
"Resilience," George said. "A lot of guys in here have been knocked down. Been the underdogs. And now we're trying to get our way back up."
The season hasn't started. The work is just beginning. But walk into that gym — listen to it, watch it — and it's hard not to feel like something is being built.
