By the third day of being inside of the transfer portal, Nelly Cummings had enough.
So much so that he turned his phone off from all of the buzz and all of the correspondence about where the guard would play in the final season of his college basketball career.
"I had to say, man, I've got to set my phone down," Cummings said on Wednesday at the ACC Tipoff event in Charlotte, N.C. "I didn't even know who I was talking to. It's been 30 conversations. Let me take a step back and write some of this down and actually put words to faces and make it make sense a little bit."
Cummings wasn't interested in a fly-by connection. He wanted to make sure whomever courted him was consistent, authentic, and real to the point where he felt comfortable enough to declare his intent to play his graduate year.
It didn't take much longer for him to make it make sense. Cummings found a connection where his heart had remained throughout his undergraduate playing career at Colgate.
The Midland, Pa., native and Lincoln Park product had a match worth swiping right for with Jeff Capel and the staff at Pitt. Capel made the call to Cummings on his first day inside of the portal, and within three weeks, Cummings decided that the Panthers' program won him over and that he was going to come home.
"Once it got as crazy as it got, if you were to text me, I wasn't really concerned," Cummings said. "I was like, it must not be authentic enough there. I'm looking for who's calling me consistently, who's talking about more than just basketball. It was deeper for that. It really felt like speed dating. It was so much, so many different people I was talking to. I had to sift through all of that and find what I really wanted. What I wanted was a genuine relationship with my head coach, and that was important."
Capel was able to pull Cummings away from the "speed dating" conundrum and allow him to situate in a backcourt which should afford opportunity for him right away.
"I think for me with Pitt it was deeper than that," he said. "The connection I had with coach Capel and the other coaches, it wasn't just a speed dating type of website. It felt a little different. The feeling that I got with coach Capel was unlike any of the coaches I had experience with.
"Other coaches were just getting to know you quick, where coach Capel was more deep, like, 'I want to know who you are as a person first. I know you're good at basketball. We understand that. But who are you? Who is your family? What made you who you are? Those type of questions had me feel a little different because it wasn't about what I am as a basketball player. It was more about who I am as a person."
As a basketball player, Cummings is a really good one.
He was one of the best players to grace the hardwood in the Patriot League last season. He paced Colgate -- which had the No. 1 offense in its league -- in scoring and was tied for seventh within the conference at 14.7 points per game. He was recognized as an All-Patriot League first-team selection following last season, and was a second-teamer two seasons prior.
The 6-foot guard also had a knack for performing at a high level against the few power programs that were on the Raiders' schedule. He averaged 18.5 points in four games against Power Six opponents last season, including a 17-point outing against Pitt in December of 2021 and a 20-point game in the NCAA Tournament against Wisconsin, in which the Raiders lost 67-60. He also had a 19-point showing against NC State and an 18-point performance against Syracuse.
Now, he has the opportunity for face those like-opponents on a near-daily basis.
"I like the challenge," he said. "It's one of the better challenges I've ever had in my life. It's exciting. Three or four games out of my year was big games. I was just looking forward, like, 'oh, I'm going to be so ready for those games.' But now I got 20 of those, so now I'm going to approach every single game like I would've approached the three or four games I had. I'm excited."
Cummings left a legacy as a scorer at Lincoln Park and within the WPIAL. He finished his high school career with 2,411 points, which left him at fifth in WPIAL history. He was also a winner from the start, as Lincoln Park captured a PIAA state title in his freshman year. Lincoln Park went 103-16 in his four years.
He had a grand effort in his return to western Pennsylvania last season, notching his 17 points in 33 minutes of action. He made 5 of 14 from the field and converted on all seven of his free-throw attempts at the Petersen Events Center.
"It was huge," Cummings said. "I got the chance to play at Pitt last year, and I had a section of about 100-something people. I never felt nothing like that in college. I can only imagine what it's going to be like every single game."
Capel clearly took note of this and didn't waste time in pursuing Cummings in the portal. That familiarity, plus the home-grown quotient, undoubtedly factored into that "speed dating" process.
"These things happen fast," Capel said. "When a season ends and a kid goes into the portal, a lot of times those decisions have to -- it's not like a recruitment when you get to know a kid as maybe a sophomore, a junior, and you bring them up for visits and unofficials and they're up and they're spending time and things like that. It's a little bit like speed dating. So you've got to have as much information as you possibly can. When these things happen, you normally start to hear -- all right, this guy's going to leave -- and so just to have information. I think you have to have one person on your staff that's dedicated that's constantly just looking."
With as much unknown as there is regarding the Dior Johnson situation, Cummings' number surely will be called upon from the jump. With Johnson out, Pitt is down to Cummings, fellow transfer Greg Elliott, Jamarius Burton, and Nike Sibande at guard. Capel mentioned in late September that Sibande had just gotten back into practice and playing five-on-five basketball, if that is any indication of his health status following a torn ACL sustained in November of 2021.
All four of those players are either redshirt seniors or graduate students, which brings a unique dynamic into a college basketball world which lately has thrived off of the play of freshmen and sophomores, especially within the ACC.
Even with all of those veterans present, the new guy was still selected to represent the Panthers alongside Burton and Capel at the ACC Tipoff event here in Charlotte. That signifies the amount of trust Capel and his fellow teammates already have in Cummings.
"I just think I can be a great representative of what we do here, of what the program is about," Cummings said. "I'm the type of guy who can speak in front of this and be comfortable because I'm secure in myself, and coach knows that about me, so I think that's something that he definitely values and something I can bring to the team and to the program."
