Pittsburgh Basketball: 3 takeaways of Dior Johnson’s indefinite suspension

1. Pressure ramps up on Nelly Cummings to be an impact transfer

The earliest offseason pickup for the Pittsburgh Basketball roster was Nelly Cummings, a 6th-year transfer with 78 career starts at Colgate and a career average of 10.2 ppg and 2.2 apg. The 6’0 playmaker is coming off career-high numbers, going for 14.7 ppg and 3.4 apg, while making 38% from the field and 36% from three-point range on over five attempts.

Technically, Cummings has been more of a combo guard at Colgate, splitting the ball-handling duties with Tucker Richardson in the backcourt. And that’s why there was such optimism for a Cummings-Johnson duo. You have the talented lead guard freshman who’ll need the guard alongside the veteran playmaker who has experience playing off the ball and can pick and choose when to be more involved.

Not only has that now been taken away but with Cashius McNeilly not joining the team, after all, that leaves the Panthers with just two true ball-handlers once again in Cummings and Jamarius Burton. It’s the same thing as last season, as the team ultimately ended up relying on walk-on  Onyebuchi Ezeakudo to stabilize the offense.

So will Cummings be a better “point guard” than Femi Odukale was last season? That’s to be decided. The Colgate transfer is obviously more capable of running the offense and has the experience but the ACC is different than the Patriot League. If Cummings ends up struggling and isn’t worth playing 25-30 mpg this season, Burton will have to play around 35 mpg himself again the backcourt will go from being a supposed “strength” to one of weakness and major concern.