Over the last five years, depth in the frontcourt has been a major issue. A decent to very good starter — not as much an issue as it sometimes gets portrayed. It’s been the drop-off when that player has to come off the court. With agonizing misses of top-ranked recruits,  injuries, transfers, and players who were overmatched when they got to Pitt, though,  it has been a struggle to simply have one decent frontcourt player to come off the bench.

After this past season and lack of front court depth looking acute, Coach Jamie Dixon has gone hard for the short-term fix.

Junior college transfer Rozelle Nix is a big burly center who looks to have the biggest upside and impact. More Gary McGhee, Aaron Gray or Ontario Lett (who also coached him in the JUCO) than Talib Zanna, Khem Birch or other centers who are (or fancy themselves) more hybrid C-PF.  Nix knows he has to play close to the basket.

Then there are the additions of graduate transfers Rafael Maia and now Alonzo Nelson-Ododa.

Former Richmond forward Alonzo Nelson-Ododa elected to play his final college season at Pitt because of his ability to block shots and work the pick-and-roll.

Nelson-Ododa, a graduate transfer who announced his decision to attend Pitt on his Twitter account, confirmed his decision with his high school coach.

“I just said congratulations and that (Jamie) Dixon would be an excellent coach for him,” said Jesse McMillan, who coached Nelson-Ododa at Norcross High School in suburban Atlanta. “He’s a rangy, athletic kid who’s a good shot blocker who played mostly (power forward) and (center) at Richmond. He can step out and shoot the jumper on the pick-and-roll. He felt that Pitt was a good school to finish his college career.”

The 6-foot-9 Nelson-Ododa, whose 1.7 blocks per game ranked sixth in the Atlantic 10 last season, adds a needed interior presence for the Panthers, who ranked No. 247 nationally in blocks.

In Nelson-Ododa’s three years at Richmond he had 185 total blocks (second all-time there).

Unless Jamel Artis is moved to small forward with regularity — unlikely given Artis’ defensive limitations against wing players — none of the three new front court players should be expected to be in the starting line-up.

What they offer is much better depth for Pitt in 2015-16. Each with a reasonable expectation of 15 minutes (+/- 5 minutes) per game.

Still, it can’t be ignored that this is mostly a short-term fix. The questions are not only how these three will pan out in the coming season, but what happens after that. Pitt has a solid frontcourt player committed in Corey Manigault.

Additionally, Pitt is one of the teams going strong after Jonathan Nwankwo (no relation). A 4-star center who was released from his letter of intent to Minnesota over academic qualifying concerns (transcripts not cleared at this time by NCAA Clearinghouse) — that could very well send him to prep school for a year. A situation that would work better for Pitt in terms of scholarship availability.

Potentially in 2016, the front court could be Young, Artis, Nix, Manigault and Nwankwo.

As frustrating and dire things have seemed recently, the flipside has been how seemingly close it could be to changing.