Jeff Capel talked about Pitt’s seniors, the program he’s building and more after the Panthers’ first win in nearly two months Saturday. Here’s the full rundown of what he said after Pitt beat Notre Dame on Saturday.

Capel: First and foremost, I’m really happy for our seniors to be able to win their final home game. Those guys have meant a lot to this program. Joey has been here the longest, and to me, he’s the epitome of the city. He’s tough, he’s hard-nosed, he’s gritty, he’s a hard worker and he’s very passionate about this city and about this university and about our program.

Sidy is a guy that wanted an opportunity to play at the highest level. He’d been a good player at New Mexico State, won a lot there, but wanted an opportunity to play at the highest level and it was really good to see him finally make some shots. It’s been a few weeks since he’s made a three, so it was good to see him do that.

And then Jared, you know, he’s a guy that believed right away when I got the job. When there was a lot of uncertainty in the program, he was certain in his beliefs in me, us, the future and the direction. I was very honest with him in my thoughts about him from afar right away. I didn’t know him but I was brutally honest with him and he accepted it and he set apart right away to change it.

And I think he’s had a really good year. I mean a really good year, and the numbers - I think he’s been a more efficient player, I think he’s grown as a leader. I said this before: I wish his whole experience, his two years here, would have been better. But I think he’s grown and I think he’s made the best of it.

So I’m happy for them, I’m happy for us to be able to put a period on this regular season and to finish it off at home with a win. It wasn’t pretty, but it was beautiful for us in the end to be on this side of it again. It’s been a long time.

I think we did some good things defensively. Obviously, both teams have struggled to score all season long, so it wasn’t the prettiest of games. I thought our attention to detail, specifically on Mooney, was very good. Some of it was that he just missed shots, but some of it was our defense. I thought that was good.

It was good to see us be able to win a close game. We’ve lost a lot of them. With the exception of the two Clemson games, the Duke game, the North Carolina game and the Virginia game, every other game we’ve played, you know, at the under-eight timeout, it’s been a two-possession game, t the under-four timeout, it’s been a two-possession game, right around there, and either way, maybe we’re winning, maybe the other team. So it was good to see us be able to finish, especially in the face of some adversity.

So again, I’m proud of our team and we look forward to going to the ACC Tournament.

What did you see differently in Trey? What was he doing more effectively today that he wasn’t over the past couple months?
Capel: I think the big thing is that he made shots. Sometimes it’s as simple as that. I thought he was able to get something easy early. I thought the dunk really ignited him and it really ignited us. And then you could see the confidence to pull up for that three - even the ones that he missed, I thought they were good shots. I thought he took good shots. I thought he didn’t try to force things. At the start of the second half, we had a play diagrammed, he made a great read and refused the screen and made the right read, and that was good to see him do that.

How much more dynamic is your offense when he’s able to score like he did today?
Capel: The reality is, we hadn’t won since he hadn’t played well. So he is very important for us because it gives us another scorer. Look, we’ve struggled to score; that’s been one of our biggest things. And I knew that coming in, that that could be an issue. Earlier, Trey and Xavier kind of - especially the first four conference games, they helped put us in a position where we had a chance to win two of them, had a chance to win three of them and we won two. But when he started to struggle, I don’t think that that’s a coincidence that it coincided with us starting to struggle, or with us struggling, I should say. So he’s very important for us and it was good to see him - the main thing for me is, it was good to see him look confident again. That’s what a really good player does, and these guys are so young, they don’t understand that. But really good players have the ability to have convenient amnesia and they’re able to move on to the next play and not allow the past to affect them. That’s very difficult for a young player, especially a young player that wants to do well so bad and he wants to do well. Sometimes you can be the best defender, and I think Trey has had a lot to do with that. I think teams’ adjustments to how they guarded us, I think some of that had to do with it. So for me, it was really good to see him confident.

You talked earlier this week about small victories. With the win today, you’re in 14th place, not in last, snap a losing streak - how important was this game for this team, even just symbolically in terms of what you want to build?
Capel: It was important for this moment right now, for this team right now. One of the things we talked about before the game was that we came into this season with hope and the hope was for a change. To change the direction of the program. And I think, early in the season I thought we did a really, really good job of that. When we got to conference, the first four games, I thought there was major hope and expectations probably changed a little bit. I don’t know if it was fair or not; it was probably warranted at the time, and then when we started losing, maybe some of that hope goes away.

We always had hope, and for me as a coach and the leader of this program right now, I knew we were doing some of the right things, a lot of things right, it just wasn’t equating to wins. But to have opportunities to be in position to win, that’s a step in the right direction.

We talked before the game about putting a period on this. And we’ve been good this year - if you look at our record, you don’t think that, but I know the things and the progress that we’ve made. We talked about putting a period at the end of this paragraph right now, and we did that. So it was big for us, for this team, for what we’re trying to do going forward as we build the program to put a period on the end of it.

I thought our crowd was terrific. Especially as we’ve gotten into conference, they’ve been great. For it to be spring break and to have our students still show up like that and to have the crowd, I think they feel the hope, too. When Gibbs went up to shoot the free throws, the energy in the building, I thought that had a little bit to do with him missing it right there because they’re a good free throw shooting team.

So it’s good to put a period on it. Now we’ll turn the page and head to the ACC Tournament and see what we can do there.

Going back to your Duke connection with Coach Brey, what was it like to see him again today and what did you learn from him?
Capel: I learned a lot from him. I had an opportunity to play for him for two years; he was an assistant at Duke my first two years there, so we shared an experience of playing in a Final Four and playing for a national championship together. He and Tommy Amaker worked with guards, so I worked very closely with him. We also went through adversity the next year when we were 2-14 in the league and when Coach was out.

Coach Brey has been a guy that I’ve stayed in touch with since he left to go to Delaware. I almost took a job with him at Delaware when I was trying to get into the profession. I’ve always admired him from afar. He’s always been fun. Even when he an assistant at Duke - it can be very heavy there, and he was a guy that always kept things light, kept things fun, gave you confidence, and I’ve admired that about him for a long time and especially as he’s gotten into coaching. I’ve always thought their teams have been fun. Since he’s been at Notre Dame, I’ve thought they’ve been fun to watch, I think they play with incredible confidence. This team’s a lot different for him from what he’s used to, but just like us, I think they’ve made some progress through some adversity.

Does that make this win a bit more special to finally take down a former coach of yours?
Capel: No. Nope.

What did you see from Kene tonight?
Capel: Kene’s been really good for us, man, the past few games. First and foremost, he’s battling with a really bad back; he doesn’t really practice that much anymore. And for him to play with energy, to play hard, to constantly screen and rim-run and come back and screen again, to give his body up trying to take charges, it’s inspiring and I’ve very grateful for it. And I thought he did a good job today.

His offensive rebound near the end of the first half -
Capel: Yeah. He makes plays like that. That’s what I mean: it’s plays that maybe don’t show up in a stat sheet and things like that, but they’re plays that are big-time for a coach and a coaching staff and a team to be in a position to win. I thought against Miami he took two charges - they weren’t called charges, but they were big-time plays, especially with how much pain he was in, to give his body up to do that, I’m incredibly appreciative of that.

When you have a guy like Jared Wilson-Frame who’s a good three-point shooter, how much does it mean to see him get in a flow early, making a shot early, and then also the one he made at the shot-clock buzzer?
Capel: Well, for us, it’s important to see anybody make a shot because we struggle to score, we struggle to shoot. Jared’s our best shooter, so anytime he can get a good look, we feel good about it and we want him ready to shoot. The play that he made at the end of the shot clock was huge. He had the wherewithal to get it up there and we were fortunate in that situation that he was able to bank it in.

I don’t know if you hear this enough and I go back to Pitt basketball to ’76, but you’ve created a real change. I don’t know if you focus on that much at all, but I’ve seen changes at this university that have been huge. I think you’ve done a really good job, so I don’t know if you’re feeling the crowd and the town responding and the seats filling up and all that.
Capel: I definitely feel the energy and I’ve felt it from day one. I think a big part of that is how hard these guys have played. From afar - I don’t know the city great yet but I think I know the city a little bit, I’ve tried to be observant, I’ve tried to get involved with different things in the community, get out and meet people, just so I can get to know the city. But from afar, I always thought it was a gritty city. It was tough, it was hard-nosed, it was passionate, and we’ve tried to display that all year long, and I think for the most part we have. Obviously we’ve had some hiccups where we didn’t play hard. I’m not talking about winning and losing; obviously I think that will come. But I do think that people have appreciated - the fans of this program and the people that have a lot of pride in this program, I do think they are appreciate of how we’ve fought, how we’ve battled.

I think everyone knows that we’re undermanned. That’s the main thing. That’s reality, I should say. But we’ve fought and we’ve put ourselves in position where, just about every game, we’ve had an opportunity, we’ve been right there. And as we continue to grow and learn from these experiences, this season and what we’ve been through will help us. It will help us, and as guys in our program continue to grow up and become juniors and seniors, we’ll be able to look back on these experiences when we get this thing really growing and understand that this was a big part of that. This was necessary for us to go through and to do it together for us to have success.

Did your guys come with that no-quit attitude or did you put it in them?
Capel: I think it’s something that we’ve tried to instill. The guys that we brought in - it was four of them. I think, especially the three freshmen, they have a natural competitiveness. The returning guys, that’s hard for me to answer because I didn’t really know them, and I try not to judge them based on their past when I wasn’t here. I’ve tried to judge them strictly on my experience with them. Some of them, we’ve had to teach. Some of them, I think they had it. It maybe was stripped away a little bit because of their experience from the past. But it’s something that’s demanded in our program. It’s just the way that it’s going to be. And if you can’t do it, then this isn’t the right place for you. It’s not personal; it’s just the reality of the situation. There’s a certain standard in which we’re going to do things, in which - how we’re going to play and how we’re going to work, and I think this year has been very important to learn that, to try to instill that, and it’s something as we go forward, we’ll have a reference point where hopefully we can have older guys to teach the younger guys and it’s not just coming from our coaching staff.