Pittsburgh Basketball: Panthers add to 2023 class with Carlton Carrington

The run of good news continues for Pittsburgh Basketball, this time landing class of 2023 guard Carlton Carrington from Baltimore.

For those following college basketball recruiting, June 15th is the first day where class of 2024 prospects can be contacted by head coaches and fully begin the overall recruiting classes for the next few months. Every D-I program, including Pittsburgh Basketball, has been talking to the future stars of the sport.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the class of 2023 isn’t a priority, since those players are the next group to potentially sign. And several of them are making commitments this month, including Carlton Carrington, a 6’4 guard from the DMV area. 247sportsComposite has him ranked as a three-star prospect but the site itself has Carrington ranked just inside the top 100 overall. His stock has been rising so there’s a good chance that he becomes a consensus four-star prospect in the 2023 class overall.

Carrington is a combo guard but is better off playing off the ball depending on the situation. He can score at all three levels and create his own shot and has the size to play at the two-spot. He projects as a high-major caliber prospect if Carrington keeps developing and should have an impact at his college destination.

And now we know that it will be for Pittsburgh Basketball, which has been a reported favorite for his services. The ACC program was able to beat out Loyola-Chicago and local program George Mason after he released a top-5 list. This makes it the second guard commitment for the program this week, landing class of 2022 top-50 guard, Dior Johnson on Monday.

There’s a good chance that Johnson will only be around for one year, while the Panthers also have a trio of guards on the roster with one year left of eligibility in Jamarius Burton, Nike Sibande, and Greg Elliott. So there’s a good chance that Carrington can vie for minutes early on in his freshman season.

This pickup also signals an aggressive approach by the coaching staff to have a big class for the 2023 cycle, after not having any commitments for a long time in 2022. They used a transfer-heavy approach this offseason but now can have a healthy mix to win now and have the future set up.

And the future looks bright for Pittsburgh Basketball, now with both Carlton Carrington and three-star wing Marlon Barnes part of the 2023 class. Of course, now the team needs to keep the commitments for the next 12 months to avoid another Judah Mintz/Jalen Hood-Schifino situation. If that happens, the Panthers will finally have some momentum off the court and hopefully, start to see it translate on the court.