Pitt will visit Cal transfer Darius McNeill

Point guard Darius McNeill made his plans to transfer out of California public on March 22, and Pitt was quickly linked to the former four-star recruit after the news broke. Now, with schools from McNeill’s home state of Texas swarming, Jeff Capel and his staff are planning on visiting him Thursday to pitch him on Pitt.

Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports was the first to report Pitt’s plans to visit McNeill, and he noted that it will precede visits to three Texas schools. According to Rothstein, McNeill will head to Dallas to visit SMU the following day. The next week, he will travel to Fort Worth to visit TCU. And a trip to Waco to visit Baylor is also being planned, though no date is set.

McNeill, a product of Westfield High School in Houston, appears to be devoting most of his focus to Texas schools, but he was also in contact with Cincinnati, Nevada, Northwestern and Oklahoma State after his intent to transfer became widely known.

Pitt has a connection to him through Tim O’Toole, the team’s associate head coach. O’Toole held the same position during his two-year stint at California, and McNeill played under him during his freshman season. So the two should be familiar. However, it’s unclear how significant that connection is to McNeill.

If Capel and his staff are able to convince McNeill to close out his collegiate career in the Steel City, they would gain a two-year veteran who has averaged 11.4 points, 2.2 assists and 1.6 assists per game over his freshman and sophomore seasons. McNeill would have two years of eligibility remaining after sitting out a season as a traditional transfer.

Update: April 7, 1:10 p.m. ET

Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports removed the Twitter post in which he reported the news about Darius McNeill's upcoming visits. He then posted a similar tweet on Sunday morning specifying that McNeill would visit Baylor in May. However, he omitted the detail about Pitt's in-home visit in the new post. A screenshot of Rothstein's original post can be seen below.

It’s unclear what prompted Rothstein to omit that detail, but multiple reporters, including Jake Weingarten of Stockrisers and Harry Psaros of Pittsburgh Sports Now, noted on Saturday that Pitt is in pursuit of McNeill. Weingarten also reported that Pitt planned to visit McNeill, but he did not specify a date. Rothstein did not immediately respond when asked for clarification on his initial report.