Elite recruit William Jeffress places Pitt in top 10

William Jeffress, a blue-chip recruit out of McDowell High School in Erie released his top 10 on Sunday night, and Pitt made the cut. The development was expected, as the recruit has been one of Pitt coach Jeff Capel’s top targets for several months and Pitt is said to be in particularly good standing with Jeffress.

Baylor, Memphis, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn State, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Villanova and Virginia also made Jeffress’ top 10 in addition to Pitt. Jeffress currently holds offers from Baylor, Memphis, Penn State, Pitt and Stanford.

The 6’7”, 195-pound forward is a consensus four-star recruit, and prior to reclassifying from 2021 to 2020, he was considered one of the top 75 prospects in the nation by 247Sports, ESPN and Rivals.

At McDowell, Jeffress became the school’s all-time scoring leader despite graduating a year early, topping 1,600 points in 68 games. He was also named the captain of the varsity team as a freshman and earned a spot on Team USA as a sophomore. With the U.S. national team, Jeffress won a gold medal at the FIBA Under-16 Americas Championships.

Jeffress averaged 21.2 points per game as a freshman, 24.0 as a sophomore and has scored 25.5 points per game so far in his third season. At Pitt, his ability to consistently score would greatly benefit a young team that has struggled with offensive consistency over the past few years. And as a member of the 2020 class, he would cap off a talented group of incoming freshmen, including Max Amadasun, Noah Collier and John Hugley.