The Replacements: Trey Zeigler

I don't make a habit of breaking down players that haven't committed to Pitt, but with the Isaiah Epps transfer, there are already several reports out there mentioning various targets. So, I'm making an exception and will be taking a look at some potential recruits over a few posts (or until I get insanely bored ... whichever happens first).

First up - Central Michigan transfer Trey Zeigler.

If you're unfamiliar with Zeigler, the long and short of it is that he's transferring out of Central Michigan (and, by the way, was at first the only player allowed to transfer from the team for some strange reason). Zeigler was a big-time recruit and a top 50 player coming out of high school. He's an above-average scorer, but not a great shooter ... I'll get to that in a bit. He's leaving the program because his father, Ernie, was the coach there and was just fired. Ernie, ironically, is a former Pitt assistant and Trey spent some time in the area when he was a kid. Zeigler will be a junior next season and thus have two years of eligibility left.

All that said, Zeigler is apparently in town for the weekend and will be taking a look around.

Don't get too excited just yet, though. Pitt has plenty of competition for his services.

Others rumored to be interested include Duke, Michigan State (though, some of their fans don't seem to want him too much), Michigan, and our old friend, Ben Howland at UCLA. That's a pretty good laundry list of quality programs, so his coming to Pitt is anything but a done deal.

Zeigler's a legitimate scoring threat and has scored more than 15 points a game each of his first two seasons. He's also a great rebounder on paper, pulling in about seven a game. But with the good comes the bad and Zeigler is far from flawless ...

The biggest thing is that he's not the best shooter in the world. He did improve his field goal percentage significantly this year, going from under 40% to just over 46% and that's a reasonable number for a guard. But he's a horrible free throw shooter even by Pitt's standards - he hit under 50% of them this season. It's also not advised that he take a lot of long-range shots as he made under 30% of his three-point attempts this year.

And then there's the turnovers.

Zeigler has had more turnovers than assists in each of his two seasons at Central Michigan. If you thought Pitt's turnover situation was bad this year, adding Zeigler to the mix might make it even worse.

Another problem is that as Chas over at Pitt Blather points out, he's a bit in the same mold as J.J. Moore, Lamar Patterson, and Durand Johnson at SF - perhaps the team's biggest strength next season.

I'm a bit undecided on Zeigler, but I'd probably lean towards wanting to add him. Pitt is losing a good chunk of scoring next season with the departures of Ashton Gibbs and Nasir Robinson and could use another threat in the lineup.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt football and basketball.