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Temple (TJ) Gibbs, a 2016 shooting guard, reportedly landed an offer from Pitt's basketball program this week. Typically, we don't talk write too much on players only being offered, but Gibbs is a special case, of course.
Gibbs is the younger brother of Ashton, the former Pitt star, and Sterling, another D-I player. Ashton was a good player in his own right, as is Sterling, who's currently at Seton Hall. But many say that Temple could actually be the best of the three.
The recruiting rankings seem to indicate that could be the case.
Gibbs is just a junior this season, but is already ranked as a four-star player by both Rivals and ESPN. Rivals lists him as the 69th best player in the nation and ESPN is even higher on him, slotting him 37th. As I noted before, he had an great year last season scoring nearly 19 points with about four rebounds and assists per game as well. In addition, Gibbs has had a big summer of games and drawing a ton of interest after that.
You could argue that Pitt is getting in a little later than expected on Gibbs, who drew a lot of interest in the past few months. But with Mustapha Heron and Maverick Rowan committed for 2016, spots (particularly, backcourt ones) were closing up. With the decommitment of Maverick Rowan now, though, Pitt looks to have another spot open. The Panthers could certainly take all three but with Damon Wilson coming next year, too, the backcourt scholarship situation was starting to fill up quickly.
According to ESPN, Gibbs has a number of offers already, including some from Pitt, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Virginia, St. John's, and several others. You could argue that the Pitt one is the best of the bunch (though, Georgetown likely would argue), but more will certainly come since he has two seasons left, including this one.
Gibbs said as recently as late September that St. John's was at the top of his list. But with new offers since then and more likely to come, we'll have to see if that holds true in two years.
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