Jeff Capel started reshaping Pitt basketball during overseas trip to Canary Islands
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Perhaps the first step toward building the same togetherness that helped carry Pitt into the 2023 NCAA Tournament came last month when the team’s plane landed in the Canary Islands.
Natives Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham were given the rare opportunity to show off their homeland to teammates, who are also among their closest friends.
A crowd of family and friends gathered. Signs greeted the players.
“It was awesome. It really, really was,” coach Jeff Capel said Wednesday. “(Players) were genuinely interested in their hometown, and seeing the pride they had in showing their teammates and their coaches where they grew up. We got to see where they lived, where they went to school. It was really cool for our guys to get to experience that.”
After losing four players whose eligibility expired, Capel has the difficult task of assembling another winning team with several new faces and acquiring the appropriate chemistry among the players.
“First and foremost, as of right now, the camaraderie, the togetherness, the chemistry have been great,” he said.
“Purposefully, when we were in Spain (playing two exhibitions) we played everybody the same amount of minutes. It’s not going to be that way when we get to the season.”
He said the feeling of unity — so strong through last season’s 24 victories — will be tested when the season starts in November.
“You really find that stuff out when you get hit in the mouth,” Capel said. “When you get to games and guys don’t play as much as they thought they would play, maybe not at all. That’s when your chemistry is really tested.”
Capel has faced a long series of challenges since he was hired in 2018 to rebuild a program that had fallen on dark times and was winless in the ACC the season before he arrived.
If you thought recovery from those dismal days was difficult, how about this one? Sustaining success.
“It’s really, really hard to do both,” he said. “There were different challenges throughout the first five years. Those challenges became even greater when you go through a global pandemic and a greatly changed landscape in college athletics.
“Now, we’re dealing with something a little bit different, which we hadn’t had to deal with, which are expectations because of what we did last year. That’s great. That’s exciting. I think our guys are up for the challenges. It’s something we’ve talked about. We’ve been very open and honest with our guys about that.
“We’re excited to be in big games and big moments, and we’ll see where we stand.”
The first task is assimilating freshman guards Bub Carrington and Jaland Lowe and transfers Ismael Leggett and Zack Austin onto the team.
Capel needs a point guard after Nelly Cummings and Jamarius Burton used up their eligibility and Dior Johnson was dismissed from school. But the coach is hopeful he’ll find one or more from among Carrington, Lowe and Leggett, who played last year at Rhode Island.
Pitt’s coaching staff is comprised of three men who played guard early in their college careers: Capel, his brother Jason and Milan Brown. The head coach hopes their experience will help the young guards develop.
“You have to be patient,” he said. “You have to understand they are going to make mistakes and you have to live through those mistakes. As a staff we can help them with learning some things, but there are some things they’re going to have to learn through the fire. We’re excited to teach them. They have to grow up fast. I’ve been very honest with them about that because they’re going to play.
“They’re mature. They’re coaches’ sons. There will be a learning curve. But fortunately for them, No. 1, they’re talented. No. 2, they’re gym rats and No. 3, probably as big as any of them, they have some really good older guys in the program to help them. Some guys who have had success. They have been really impactful in their development so far.”
Those players include first-team All-ACC forward Blake Hinson, who contemplated entering the NBA Draft before deciding to return to Pitt, and the Diaz Graham twins, who each added about 20 pounds to their 7-foot (Guillermo) and 6-11 (Jorge) frames.
Plus, 6-11 Federiko Federiko and William Jeffress, who missed all of last season with a foot injury, are back.
What brought Hinson back to Pitt?
“The opportunity to go pro wasn’t as good as the opportunity to come back here. So, I’m back,” said Hinson, who lost about 25 pounds since the end of the spring semester.
He said he did that by eating less and working out more.
“He’s able to do more things on the court,” Capel said.
Hinson said he is motivated by some disrespect aimed at Pitt that he came across recently, projecting the Panthers to finish 13th in the ACC.
“We’re going to remember that,” he said. “Honestly, I feel like we are the best team in the ACC. We respect the league, but we feel like we can win it.”