Dixon signs two more recruits for 2005-06 season

Pitt could literally start fresh next year with the five incoming recruits it has signed for… Pitt could literally start fresh next year with the five incoming recruits it has signed for the 2005-06 season.

Head coach Jamie Dixon announced yesterday that he had two more National Letters of Intent signed by Trevor Ferguson and Levance Fields.

The two guards join forwards Tyrell Biggs, Doyle Hudson and Sam Young as next year’s incoming recruits.

The five make up one of the best recruiting classes in the nation. Hoopscooponline.com and Rivals.com rank Dixon’s incoming class as No. 13 and No. 25, respectively.

Fields, a 5-foot-10-inch scoring guard from Brooklyn, N.Y., verbally committed to Pitt on Dec. 6, a day before he watched the Panthers defeat Memphis at Madison Square Garden.

He played basketball for Xaverian High School — the same that former Panther Chris Taft attended — and played on the same AAU team, the New York Gauchos, as freshman Pitt guard Ronald Ramon.

As a senior at Xaverian, Fields averaged 27 points, five rebounds and six assists per game en route to a 20-11 record.

Ferguson is a bit taller than Fields, standing 6 feet 5 inches tall. The Odessa, Fla., native fell one short of Fields in points, however, averaging 26 per game as a senior. His height allowed him to be a presence under the basket, pulling down an average of 11 rebounds a game his senior year.

He once scored 52 points and hit eight 3-pointers in a game. His range could help Pitt greatly, as the problem of long range shooting was thought to be solved early last season, only to relapse into the same nothing-but-iron shots. Ferguson also averaged 7.5 assists per game, proving that he is a complete team player.

Ferguson joins Hudson in leaving a warm climate to come to a cold and usually snowy Pittsburgh to play basketball — Hudson being a 6-foot-8-inch junior college transfer from Eleutheray, Bahamas.

The larger-than-usual recruiting class was needed to replace two departing seniors, Chevon Troutman and Mark McCarroll, as well as Taft, a sophomore, and junior guard Carl Krauser, who both declared for the draft in recent weeks.

Krauser, however, has not retained an agent and can still come back to Pitt next year if he feels that he wants to spend another year refining his skills. He has until June 21 to make that decision.

As of right now, the five recruits will join returning players John DeGroat, Aaron Gray, Levon Kendall, Antonio Graves, Keith Benjamin, Charles Small, Marcus Bowman and Ramon.

If Krauser does not return, the starting lineup possibilities are endless with Graves being the only weathered starter on the team — and even still, he may not start. Ramon and Gray have received praise from Dixon and will likely being starters in Pitt’s offense next year, with Ramon running the point and Gray playing the center position, something the Panthers haven’t officially had since Ontario Lett.