Pitt head coach Jeff Capel met with the media following his team’s 75-54 win over Louisville on Wednesday. Here is a complete recap of everything he had to say.
Capel: Well first and foremost I’m really proud of my team. Any win in this league is a really good win, but especially when you can get a road win. I thought coming in, I thought Louisville had been battling. If you look at last four games they’ve been in them and I thought maybe they should won the Syracuse game, or had a chance to win that one. They led at Clemson for a good part of the first half, it was a two-possession game late. Wake jumped them early, but they cut it to three in the second half. Another game where it’s a two-possession game late. Then they led for a good part of the first half against North Carolina. So I thought it was a team that has been fighting and battling, so I was really nervous for it because of their size and their ability to rebound the basketball, and obviously Ellis is scary because he can score in bunches and has a total green light. I thought we came out and I thought we had a really good start from the under-16 timeout to the under-12 timeout I don’t think we played well, but man I’m really proud of my guys on the bench. They came in and gave us a huge, huge lift. Nike Sibande with his scoring and then Guillermo and Nate Santos with their energy. I thought that those three guys really turned the game around for us and we were able to battle throughout. Really proud of us. I thought we really defended well. I thought we really shared the basketball. We were able to score, made 14 3s and had some other ones that could have been a little bit bigger if we were able to knock in a few more shots. I’m really proud of my team and look forward to the next one.
Questions.
You have matched your highest ACC win total already. Where are you seeing the breakthrough coming in?
Capel: I think the biggest thing is that these guys play for each other, like they really care about each other. The last game we played at Georgia Tech, Greg Elliott struggled and Nike Sibande was really, really good. And I pulled Nike aside tonight at the end of the game, I pulled him up to me and I told him, ‘Greg played as well as he did tonight because of you, because of the energy that you gave him and how positive and what a great teammate you were.’ All I’ve talked about with my team this year is just be a really good teammate. Be a really good teammate and play hard and this group has done that. They’re genuinely happy for each other and I think you see it. Anyone who has seen us in the past and they watch this team this year, it’s a big difference. Obviously I think we have some more quality depth. We’re obviously older. The transfer portal was good for us, but to me the biggest thing is that it’s a group of guys, young men, that really and truly care about each other. For me, it’s fun to be around.
What’s it been like to see Nate and Guillermo take these steps in ACC play?
Capel: Yea, it’s huge man. It’s huge. They’ve played well, even before tonight, like they’ve played well. And they’re good players and it was really good to see Nate hit a three. He doesn’t miss in practice, but for whatever reason in the games he’s struggled. But more than anything, I thought both of them played with force. They talked, played with energy, defended. Guillermo has eight rebounds, four of them offensive, four of them defensive. We need all of the defensive rebounds that we can get because that’s an area where we’ve struggled. I thought we did a better job in the second half. They had seven offensive rebounds in the first half, only four in the second half. But I just thought those two guys, and obviously Nike with his scoring in the first half really gave us a huge, huge lift and opened the game up for us.
Louisville is going through a difficult season, what has been your message to Kenny (Payne) and Nolan (Smith)?
Capel: Well I talk to Nolan a lot and Kenny is a friend. And just, you know, stay positive, fight, try to create the culture that you’re trying to create. Look, when you take over these jobs, man it’s hard. Any job, but especially jobs in this league. They’re hard, and especially if you take over something that was broken. And I don’t know everything about (Louisville) — I don’t, but I know that Kenny is a good coach. I know he has a good coaching staff and I know that it’s hard. It’s hard when you take over a new job and especially when you take over one that was broken. Those young men on that team in this program went through a lot last year, a lot, and that can be very difficult. It can be really difficult on their psyche, confidence and things like that and then you have a new group of men that comes in, a new coaching staff that you don’t know. So you’re trying to build relationships, create relationships, cultivate relationships and trying to change habits and that can be really hard and it takes time. That’s why I thought I was impressed over the last four games because it didn’t seem like they quit. It didn’t seem like it’s a group of guys that quit. When we played Louisville the second time last year at our place, I thought at that time it was a group that had quit. Maybe it happened in that game in the second half, but I haven’t seen that all year with the challenges that they have gone through.
How have you seen Burton evolve with penetrating and driving and kicking and creating opportunities for others?
Capel: I just think he’s a really good player. He’s having a heck of a year. He’s a mature guard, a mature player. He didn’t force things. He understood how they were playing him. He was able to drive and get to spots. Anytime we put him in the post, which has been something that’s good for us, they doubled. He knew that, saw that, and was able to make the reads. He invited the double and again in scouting we knew that the weak side would be open and he was able to, with his size and strength, make those passes and make those plays.
You scored 25 points off of turnovers, can you talk about your team’s ability to capitalize on mistakes?
Capel: We knew coming in that was an area of weakness for them. They had been turning the basketball over, it was almost right at 17 a game. I think it was 16.9 if we want to be exact in conference play. So we knew that was an area where we maybe could capitalize on and I thought out guys did a good job of doing that and forcing some turnovers and then getting out in transition. The other thing we thought, I knew coming into this game that they were really going to crash the glass. Just looking at it, I thought they would feel like that would be an advantage because of their size and athleticism. We felt like if we could rebound we could really get out in transition because they were selling out and a lot of times the guy that penetrates for them is Ellis. A lot of times they would have all five guys below the free throw line, so if we got it we could get out in transition and get some easy stuff before their defense was set and I thought we did a decent job of doing that as well.
After what happened in last week’s loss against Duke and to be able to rebound and get two ACC road wins. What does that say about the response from your team?
Capel: Well I’m really proud of my team and I think I said this after Georgia Tech for how we responded. In the past, and we had lost two in a row, maybe that would spiral to four in a row, six in a row. That’s what has happened in the past, hut I thought the Georgia Tech win was huge for that. For us to go down there and fight and be mature. We didn't rebound as well down there, again we have to get better there. They had 11 tonight, we were better in the second half with it. But we’re going to have to continue to fight. We’re going to have to continue to do it as a committee. I tell my guys all the time that I wish we had a guy that I can pencil in for 10+ rebounds and I’ve coached a guy like that. I’ve coached a guy that led the country in rebounds and I had a kid a couple of years ago that led the ACC in rebounding. That’s now who we are. I would love for someone to just appear and do that. We have to do it together. So you saw Nelly get in there and rebound. Nike has been a good rebounder. He has over 600 rebounds in his career. That’s why Guillermo getting in there and doing that was big for us.
You mentioned how the transfer portal treated you well. Can you talk about how that has changed the game a bit and how it has allowed programs to make a big jump in one year?
Capel: Well to me what it has done is just giving you another area to recruit. It’s as simple as that. We’re going to continue to recruit high school kids, JuCo kids. Federiko is a junior college kid. International and obviously the transfer portal. It just gives you another area where you can recruit. I thought we did it last year. We didn’t do as good of a job and that’s no disrespect to anyone, but we didn’t get to get kids on campus. All of our stuff was done via Zoom. We are not a program that can do things via Zoom. We’ve got to get kids on campus. We’ve got to get our eyes on them. I challenged our staff after last season. I said from march to July we’ve got to have some wins. We didn’t have many wins last year, but we’ve got to have a lot from March to July, and I think we did.
