PPG Paints Arena crowd may lean toward Kentucky, former WPIAL stars Tre Mitchell, Adou Thiero

After graduating from Elizabeth Forward High School and perhaps a time or two through the years, Kentucky’s Tre Mitchell heard from the coaches at Pitt.

After all, he has attended four institutions of higher learning and basketball through the years, and it seems some school or another always was recruiting him.

His answer: Thanks, but no thanks. Nothing against Pitt, but Mitchell wanted to get out of town.

“They reached out to me,” he said. “For me, I didn’t want to necessarily be at home because I felt like it was easy to get distracted. I have a bigger goal in mind, and I wanted to stay focused. Being this close to home would have provided a lot of opportunities for people to get in my ear and distract me from what I’m trying to do.”

But there will be a building full of people getting in both ears Thursday — and maybe giving Kentucky an edge — when Mitchell and his teammates meet Oakland in an NCAA Tournament first-round game Thursday at PPG Paints Arena.

“If they are breathing and they are in Pennsylvania, they will be here,” Mitchell said of family and friends. “The Italian side (of his family) is very large. I’m sure I’ll be able to hear their voices over anybody that’s in there. Any person who I had some type of relationship (with) or come into contact with throughout my time here in Pittsburgh, through AAU, high school, they all told me they’re going to be here. I honestly couldn’t give you a number of how many people hit me and said they’re going to be here.”

Kentucky may be the darling of the crowd with two area players — Mitchell and Quaker Valley’s Adou Thiero — and two coaches with local ties. Head coach John Calipari is from Moon, and assistant Orlando Antigua played and coached at Pitt.

“I have people texting me who hadn’t seen me play since I was a little kid,” Thiero said, “telling me they’re coming to the game.”

Thiero has a unique perspective of Calipari, who coached his father, Almamy, at Memphis.

“My pops, he would tell me stories,” Thiero said. “(Calipari) was more rough back in the day, had them running a lot more. He still has us do all that, but I feel like he’s taking it a little bit lighter on us. I’m OK with that because the stories my dad was telling me, woo, they were going through it.”

Mitchell, a 6-foot-9, 231-pound graduate senior, is approaching the end of his final collegiate season. He leads the Wildcats in rebounding (7.0 per game) while averaging 10.6 points after spending two seasons at UMass coming out of high school and one each at Texas and West Virginia. Playing some of the final games of his career in Pittsburgh is important to him.

“Being able to have people around me see this moment come full-circle, it’s proof in itself that was the path I was supposed to be on,” said Mitchell, who’s made 23 starts this season. “It’s an unbelievable blessing from above. I’ve had an interesting path, to say the least. I’ve had my ups and downs. I’ve been through adversity and just about everything’s been thrown at me. It’s not necessarily the desired path, but the path I was meant to be on.“

Thiero (6-8, 222) filled up the stat sheet at Quaker Valley, averaging 23.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 3.9 steals and 2.3 blocks per game while helping the Quakers (27-1) win a WPIAL championship during the 2021-2022 season. Today, he is Kentucky’s second-leading rebounder (5.2) while averaging 7.5 points. He has made 19 starts in his sophomore season.

“I’d say just growing up here helped mold me,” Thiero said. “My family, the people around me, everybody just tried to keep me focused at all times, made sure I wasn’t getting off the right path.

“And I think that doing all that and just listening to the right people, that got me to where I am today.”