Jeff Capel needs to Go

Since I was born, Pitt basketball has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. The Jeff Capel era has settled somewhere in the middle—good but not great. Over the last three years, Pitt has had good teams that have shown flashes of greatness. In the 2022-23 season, they won multiple NCAA tournament games. A year later, they won at Cameron Indoor and took No. 1 seed North Carolina to the wire in the ACC tournament semifinals. However, this season, the supposed best team in a decade completely collapsed on national television Monday night. Embarrassing doesn't even begin to describe that loss; it was flat-out sad and degrading to watch. As Virginia went on a huge run, putting Pitt down by twenty, Capel just squatted on the sideline, watching, doing nothing to adjust. Looking back on the 2022-23 season, I’m grateful it happened, but a part of me wishes it never did. If Pitt had missed the tournament that year, Capel likely would have been fired, and our dipshit former AD wouldn’t have given him an extension. Now, we’re stuck with a contract that lasts until 2030, probably with a massive buyout.

The excuses from Capel sympathizers have officially run out. I don’t care that he took over a dumpster fire—we’re seven years removed from his hiring, and he has just one NCAA tournament appearance. Kevin Stallings, whom Capel replaced, couldn't recruit or coach on game day. Pitt fans knew Capel was a great recruiter, but we hoped that with resources and time, he would develop into a solid X’s and O’s coach, like Jamie Dixon during Pitt’s glory years in the 2000s. We were wrong. Capel turned into the Phil Jackson of AAU coaches, running an offense like a top-rated EYBL team—five-out isolation ball with the occasional center-guard pick-and-roll. That doesn’t work in college. Even when Pitt made the tournament in 2022-23, this was their offensive approach. However, that team had Jamarius Burton, who outmuscled everyone, and Blake Hinson, who could shoot from anywhere when the offense stagnated. Those two should never pay for a meal or a drink in Pittsburgh again for carrying this lifeless offense. In 2022-23, even though the team didn’t have a real offensive system, they won games because they cared when they put on a Pitt jersey. They were given a second or even third chance by the university and responded by giving everything they had every night. Even last year’s team, which barely missed the tournament, left it all on the court—especially in the final two months of the season. Blake Hinson, in particular, earned his place as a Pitt all-time great. Jamie Dixon wasn’t known for landing top recruiting classes, but he recruited players who gave blood, sweat, and tears for Pitt—LeVance Fields, DeJuan Blair, Ronald Ramon, Ashton Gibbs, and many more. They loved the university and did whatever it took to win. Outside of one season, the Capel era has been filled with players who either lost interest or transferred early.

To Capel’s credit, he brought in good recruits even when Pitt looked awful. But until recently, they rarely finished their college careers here. Xavier Johnson, Trey McGowens, Marcus Carr, and Au’Diese Toney all showed promise as freshmen but had something in common: they quit. The culture in Capel’s early years was so toxic that all four of them left midseason. This hurt Pitt, especially since McGowens and Carr had excellent college careers elsewhere. Capel restored some of that Pitt pride for two seasons, but Monday’s loss to Virginia felt like watching those early, disastrous Capel teams again. Jaland Lowe, a supposed star, has one of the worst shot selections in the country, especially when he doesn’t get a foul call. Damian Dunn, a sixth-year senior who I’ve liked, flat-out quit at the end of the Virginia game. Only a few players seem to truly care about Pitt—Zack Austin, Papa Kante, Beebah Cummings, and Jorge Diaz Graham. Everyone else is carrying themselves with poor body language. Lowe, who I think will transfer at the end of the season, is one of the worst offenders—refusing to hustle back on defense against North Carolina and many other teams because he thought he was fouled. That’s a selfish play, especially when his teammates were sprinting back. But the worst culprit is Cam Corhen, the transfer from Florida State. I have no issue saying Capel has been excellent in the transfer portal era, but Corhen has been a massive failure at Pitt. In a season where Pitt desperately needed a dominant center, he has come up far short of expectations. His body language has been terrible, and his signature move is taking contested mid-range jumpers when Pitt desperately needs a bucket—bricking them every time. Worse, he refuses to rebound, which has been Pitt’s biggest weakness and a clear sign of poor effort. Corhen’s signature moment this season? Getting out-rebounded by a point guard who missed his own free throw. This lack of effort and failure to box out has plagued all of Pitt’s big men and stems directly from poor coaching—or a complete lack thereof.

It’s simple: a coach who cannot make the tournament with a lottery pick, the ACC Sixth Man of the Year, and one of the best scorers in the country is not a good coach. That’s exactly what Capel did last year. This season, he has a chance to redeem himself, but he isn’t. And while Pitt is still in the “first four out” conversation, according to some bracketologists, the fans have had enough. The team looks like they’ve quit. Unfortunately, Capel’s buyout may be too large to fire him immediately, but if Pitt wants to be taken seriously again in basketball, missing the tournament this year should mark the end of his tenure. Without Blake Hinson, Jamarius Burton, and—going back to his Oklahoma days—Blake Griffin, Capel is a terrible head coach. I’m officially sick of hearing the same excuses about “needing more effort” and Capel saying he needs to “do a better job” in press conferences. Maybe instead of saying it, he should actually make changes. But that would be too difficult for him. I don’t care who transfers if he’s fired—the program needs another reset. If they do fire him, Kante and Cummings are the only two players they should try to keep. For the first time in his tenure, I have completely given up on Capel and his team. Barring a miracle run to end the season, he is dead to me—and to many Pitt fans.