Pitt basketball may not be done just yet when adding to its 2025-26 roster and help may come from a familiar name.
Late Thursday night, assistant coach Jason Capel posted on Instagram a picture with guard Damian Dunn with a caption “to be continued…”
Photo credit: Jason Capel on Instagram
A source told Pittsburgh Sports Now that the Panthers have been quietly working over the past month to get Dunn a medical waiver for one more season of college basketball. There is still no official word if there has been a ruling or not from the NCAA.
It would be the seventh season of college basketball for Dunn. Before playing last season at Pitt, Dunn spent a year at Houston after starting his career at Temple.
Dunn — a 6-foot-5, guard from Kinston, N.C. — saw his graduate season cut short due to a fractured elbow suffered against North Carolina. He also dealt with an early-season thumb injury that kept him out for a few weeks. In all, Dunn played in 16 of Pitt’s 32 games, where he contributed 9.9 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game, while shooting 41.2 percent.
Back in February, head coach Jeff Capel was asked about the possibility of Damian Dunn receiving an extra year, but wasn’t too optimistic.
“I doubt it,” Capel said. “I think he’s played too many games. There’s a certain percentage that you have to be under in order to get a redshirt, and I think he played too many games for that.”
According to 2adays.com, the NCAA grants medical redshirt years to players who meet the following criteria: 1. suffer an injury that is deemed “season-ending,” their injury must occur before the halfway point of the season, and not participate in more than 30% of the season’s games.
While Pitt awaits a ruling for Dunn, there are still a few players that the Panthers are keeping an eye on. One of those is 6-foot-9 Croatian forward Luka Skoric. Pitt has been linked with him, along with Kansas and West Virginia. He averaged 5.6 points per game in the ABA this past season and shot 42.3 percent from three.
