Pitt Basketball Recruiting: 2016 recruit Mustapha Heron 'wide open', per coach

A short while back, Pitt's basketball program got some bad news in that 2016 guard Mustapha Heron had decommitted and reopened his recruitment. Sometimes when players decommit, they declare their former pick as a favorite.

According to his coach, however, that isn't the case here:

"Mustapha Heron and Rawle Alkins are wide open," he said. "They want to be recruited. They do not have any leaders in the clubhouse at this point in time. Anyone who says these kids are leaning toward a school doesn’t know. They want to be recruited."

I won't claim that Pitt has no chance to land Heron. I do think, however, that when kids decommit, it's hard to land them again. I don't have any stats to back this up, but it seems like they end up somewhere else more often than not.

Heron, as I initially wrote, claimed that he was sticking with Pitt after Barry Rohrssen, the Panthers' assistant recruiting him, was leaving for Kentucky. He continued to say he was staying with Pitt, even as recently as last month. Judging by that, I don't think I'd rule anything out.

Another issue, of course, is the Rohrssen factor, who was very close with his family and even played overseas with Heron's father. That relationship was always kind of at the forefront for him choosing Pitt with his father even citing Rohrssen rejoining the Panthers' program making the decision for Mustapha to go there very easy. Much of it always seemed to hinge on Rohrssen being on staff.

Plus, he 'wants to be recruited' kind of leads me to believe that this is going to be a drawn out process - and you'd think that the more time there is, the more other schools have to get their feet into the door. It's kind of funny, really, considering that many recruits that commit early generally say that they are glad to have the recruiting process over with.

Funny how that works out, right?

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