Pittsburgh Basketball: Panthers can withstand losing Cashius McNeilly

Pittsburgh Basketball lost another player this offseason, a former commit to the roster in Cashius McNeilly. Will the Panthers miss him?

Throughout the offseason, Pittsburgh Basketball was able to land eight newcomers to the roster for the 2023-23 season. One of them midway through was Cashius McNeilly, a JUCO transfer from Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa and former top-50 prospect out of high school.

The 6’4 guard has had an interesting career path to this point. He started at Texas A&M and moved on to TCU, eventually not playing for either program due to injuries and the covid pandemic. McNeilly went the JUCO route and committed to Maryland midway through last season before a coaching change forced him to de-commit.

It looked as if Pittsburgh would be the new home for McNeilly until the program could land top-50 prospect Dior Johnson. His arrival changed the outlook for the Panthers‘ backcourt and how the projected minutes would occur. Not only has that taken away 25-30 potential minutes in the backcourt but it also forces McNeilly to beat out 5th-year seniors such as Greg Elliott, Jamarius Burton, and Nelly Cummings for minutes. And realistically, that just wasn’t going to happen.

That leads to an article from Pittsburgh Sports Now on Thursday night, saying that McNeilly won’t be joining the program after all. This really isn’t much of a surprise, as the pathway for minutes simply wasn’t there for the young guard that had three years of eligibility left. Once Johnson joined the program, the player and team eventually parting ways became a likely option.

For Panther fans, there’s an instant sense of fear and panic whenever a player leaves a roster since that has happened a lot in the Jeff Capel era. Now, there are 12 scholarship players on the 2022-23 team. Last season, the team had no depth in the backcourt and one injury decimated the Panthers.

However, Pittsburgh’s roster is in much better shape and can lose one player without the rest of the dominoes falling. Right now, there are three ball-handlers (Johnson, Cummings, Burton), three shooting guards (Burton, Elliott, Nike Sibande), and four capable small forwards (Sibande, Nate Santos, William Jeffress, Blake Hinson). And with John Hugley and the Diaz-Graham twins (Jorge and Guillermo) in the frontcourt, the Panthers are fine there.

Another reality is that Pittsburgh isn’t going to fill that last scholarship. There isn’t anyone currently in the transfer portal that’ll compete for minutes in the backcourt and there’s also no reason to add someone that isn’t going to play next season anyways. The one downside of losing McNeilly is that had he been willing to not play much next season, he could’ve been a lead guard candidate for the 2023-24 roster and the team wouldn’t have had to find another transfer guard in the portal.

Losing a player that had the potential of having an impact always stings but Pittsburgh Basketball is in good shape in the backcourt right now. Of course, that depends on Johnson having a big freshman campaign and being worthy of playing 25-30 mpg next season. McNeilly will find a new home soon but the Panthers’ season won’t crash and burn because they lost out on him.