Capel on Pitt's 65-64 win over North Carolina

Pitt head coach Jeff Capel met with the media following his team’s 65-64 win over North Carolina. Here is a complete rundown of everything he had to say.

Capel: First and foremost, what a great and hard-fought college basketball game. Both teams really battled, fought, competed. Guys stepped up and made big-time plays on both sides. I’m really, really proud of my team. This was a gritty win for us. We just found a way to make plays. At the end we were able to get some rebounds. We had that stretch there where I think we were down 5 or 7, something and then we got into a rhythm offensively then Nelly stepped up and made some big-time shots for us. I thought Federiko got and finished some around the basket and we really did a great job in that moment to execute to come back, tie it up, and take the lead and go up by a few possessions. And then down at the end we were able to get some stops and make some big-time plays. Just really proud of my team.

What was your evaluation of Federiko’s defense down low tonight?

Capel: I thought it was terrific. I mean Bacot is one of the best players in the country, certainly one of the best big guys and I thought he did an outstanding job of pushing him off the block, contesting his shots. He’s just such a load, especially trying to block him out, but I thought Federiko did an outstanding job.

On that final shot, Nike got a blocked shot. On that inbounds play was that something shown on tape?

Capel: It was something a little bit different that we haven’t seen. I thought they were going to run the play they ran against Ohio State in the Garden. That’s the one we were anticipating, but we knew we wanted to make the ball come back and we wanted to keep it away from going to the basket and put a bigger guy on the ball. I mean he got a decent look at it. He was hot today, Love was, and fortunately for us we were able to get a piece of it.

On the last offensive possession, you set the double screen for Burton. Was that just to get Leaky Black off of him?

Capel: Yea we wanted to get the switch. We wanted to get the switch and wanted to get Davis on him. We saw the initial matchup when we came out initially. We talked about how we were going to try to slip that screen and open it up, but once we saw who RJ was on we wanted to set it and try to force the switch and try to get downhill from there.

Your team is now 5-1 in game decided by 5 points or less in the ACC. What allows you guys to find ways to win in these close, hard-fought games?

Capel: These guys don’t blink. That’s the main thing. We don’t blink. The crowd started going crazy. They made a big shot to tie it and we just didn’t blink. We just keep playing and we executed and we’ve been pretty fortunate to come out on top in those seven games.

On the double technical, did the officials tell you what happened there?

Capel: No.

Your brother was pretty heated afterward, what transpired there?

Capel: Yea, it’s been — my brother loves this school. He dreamt of coming here as a player when he was little. We grew up here, my family moved to Virginia, I think my brother was going to ninth grade. This was the place he always dreamt of playing and he wore that jersey with a lot of pride and since he’s left here there’s been a lot of disrespect towards him. One thing happened today, and I don’t think it’s coming from within the basketball program. And I don’t know who controls their social media and there was a Tweet, and I was hoping he didn’t see it. I’m not on social media, one of the guys on my staff showed it to me. I get social media, Twitter, you try to be funny or you try to do whatever, but I thought it was them trolling him. It’s a complicated relationship with him and North Carolina. He loves it, but I think at times he doesn’t feel that back. It started, to be honest with you, in 2009. We played North Carolina when I was at Oklahoma to go to the Final 4. My brother was there with my whole family supporting me, he had an OU shirt on. And the Carolina fans were pretty (crappy) towards him, excuse my language, but pretty nasty. It took one of the former players to say something. For me it’s just really interesting because I grew up in the state and this is one of the most tradition-laden programs in the history of college athletics, not just college basketball and you hear about the Carolina family. It’s just amazing to me that their social media people would do that. I don’t think it’s Hubert, Hubert is awesome, he really is. I don’t think it’s the players on the team, they are incredibly respectful and really good young guys. Obviously the game was emotional and that’s the way it’s supposed to be as you get into February. But to answer your question, it’s a complicated relationship. But I hate it. I hate it for him, I hate it for this program because I know that he loves this place.

What does it mean to get a season sweep and win three straight against the Tar Heels, especially for your NCAA Tournament hopes?

Capel: For us, and Wes can attest to this, and I talk to my team about it…we just concentrate on what is in front of us. We didn’t worry about what’s happened in the past, any previous times we’ve played them, and we’re not worried about the future. We want to have our feet in front of us right where we are and we just focus on that.

Can you talk about Nelly’s ability to shoot the basketball today?

Capel: We wanted to keep riding him. We felt like he had it going. We came here and shot last night and came to the shoot around today and I felt like he felt the juice and had a little bit of a rhythm in here. Fortunately for us he was able to step up and make some big-time shots.

Your starters logged a lot of minutes lately, how nice is it to get six days off?

Capel: It’s huge for us. It’s huge. We do have guys that play a lot of minutes, so we’ll take a couple of days off and hopefully we can get recovered and get ready for the next game.