Pitt Hoops: Can Jeff Capel bring excitement back to the Oakland Zoo? Yes, but it will take time



… good hire for A.D. Heather Lyke

Some Pittsburgh basketball fans cannot recall the thrilling games that were held at the Peterson during the Jamie Dixon era. From 2003 until 2014, they place was rocking, giving it national credibility.

In 2010, the Panthers finished in the Elite Eight in the country, which whet the appetite of students and fans throughout the country. It was a heady time for Pitt.

Now, after finishing the 2017-18 season with a pitiful 0-18 record in the ACC, then firing the coach, the Panthers have to regroup. Athletic Director Heather Lyke struggled with her first major hire, but she came out of it with an outstanding hire.

Jeff Capel

Finally, Lyke settled on a coach with great ACC connections and with a pedigree from one of the most prestigious basketball schools in the country. In the past few years, he served as the top assistant coach to Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, the top coach in the land over the past 30 years who called the hire “amazing.”

Pitt fans hope Coach K is right.

Capel has head coaching experience at both Virginia Commonwealth and Oklahoma. He played at Duke, and he became the youngest head coach in the national at VCU at the age of 27. He struggled with a scandal at Oklahoma caused by an assistant coach, but still compiled a xx record before being fired.

Most important for the Panthers is his ability to bring top players to play for him. “Capel is a dynamic recruiter who landed as many McDonald's All-Americans (four) in five years with the Sooners as Kelvin Sampson and Billy Tubbs had in the previous 26. Capel recruited top-10 talent for Duke, which landed 19 McDonald's All-Americans and the nation's No. 1 classes in 2014, '15 and '18,” the Tribune-Review’s Kevin Gorman wrote. Gorman acknowledged that attracting players to Pitt will be more challenging than to Durham to play for Coach K or to Norman, Okla.

And then there was light

However, after two years of Kevin Stallings, a devastating blow to the program given to them courtesy of former A.D. Scott Barnes, at least some hope is visible on the horizon.

Pitt fans may forget that it was nine years ago that they won 31 games, a season in which they became the No. 1 team in the nation in both polls, a season in which they were a No.1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. It was a heady time. 

Ben Howland started that resurgence, and Capel must now being that trek, one that is much more difficult than Howland's was.

Things Take Time (TTT)

Honestly, I hate the TTT principle. Patience, however, is a virtue, and the Pitt fans will need plenty of it. Capel knows the game, knows the conference, and with some new recruits over the next four years, should turn the program in the right direction. The goal should be a return to the NCAA Tournament, and that would be a pipe dream right now.

However, Lyke appears to have hit a four-bagger with this hire. She went against the traditional game plan of hiring a head coach, going with a person with that experience but even better cred than a head job.

Patience will be required, but Pitt is finally moving back in a positive direction.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the toughest loss I ever experienced in approximately a quarter-century of coaching football. George Pasierb was a great coaching adversary.

Image
R.I.P. George Pasierb, 1946-2020 Shade-Central City High School football coach Photo: Tribune-Democrat No high school football fan could ask for anything better than this. On a beautiful sunny, warm afternoon on Saturday, October 30, 1982, in Nanty Glory, Pa., the battle featured a clash of two undefeated titans of the Appalachian Conference.  One was the preseason unanimous favorite to win the title, the other a veritable surprise that season, one that had built an 8-0 record entering that game.  This battle lived up to the pre-game hype, ending in a one-point decision that was not certain until the final play of the game.  I thought of this because the coach of the powerful Shade-Central City High School Panthers, George Pasierb, passed away earlier this week. He coached the Panthers for 20 years, but his best team was arguably that 1982 team that battled the Blacklick Valley Vikings on that Saturday afternoon before more than 3,000 ebullient fans.  And, the one-po...
Read more

Why did Tennessee-Chattanooga hire trainer Tim Bream despite his role in the alcohol-induced death of Tim Piazza at a Penn State frat?

Image
… was a live-in advisor at the fraternity On paper, Tim Bream has an impressive resume. Actually, very impressive — up to a point. That seems to be when Bream’s life appears to careen out of control. Bream, who resigned as Penn State trainer in Feb.,  was a graduate of Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, specializing in athletic training. He then attended West Virginia as a grad assistant trainer, where he received a master’s degree in Physical Education with an emphasis on Sports Science. All of this information is from his bio on the Penn State athletic site. He then worked his way up the ladder impressively, working at Syracuse, Vanderbilt, and finally at the University of Richmond, where he was the Director of Sports Medicine and Head Athletic Trainer. Then he received his big break, being name as Assistant Athletic Trainer for the Chicago Bears in 1993, and four years later, Head Athletic Trainer. He was with the Bears for 19 years when inexplicably,...
Read more

Why did Mike Tomlin start hiring black coaches after 15 years?

Image
Brian Flores … hiring Flores probably rankled Goodell To place this into context, understand that the only reason that the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin 15 years ago is because he was black.  Why? He had never even been a coordinator anywhere, never in the NFL. The only reason that he was interviewed was because of the “Rooney Rule.” That rule is one named after the late Dan Rooney who led the effort to force every NFL team to interview at least one black coach when it had head coaching openings.  The Steelers had focused their coaching search after Bill Cowher left on Ron Rivera, then a defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. Their interview with Tomlin was a peremptory one, something to satisfy the smell test.  After all, why interview a guy who was just a defensive coach? Coordinators are the people who are hired for the big gig.  Tomlin, though, is a great talker, and he wooed Dan Rooney so much that he was hired for the position.  Which begs the q...
Read more