Capel: 'This is a pretty cool doggone thing'

Pitt head coach Jeff Capel met with the media on Sunday evening following his team’s selection into the NCAA Tournament. Here is a full rundown of everything Capel had to say.

What was your message to your guys the past couple of days as they had to wait for this moment and knowing they couldn’t do anything after the ACC Tournament?

Capel: Just to be excited. We were excited about the day, excited about the opportunity. We felt pretty comfortable and confident that we would hear our name called. Let’s just be ready for when that happens and we’ll figure out who we’ll play, when we’ll play, and be ready to go from there.

You said all along you felt that this was a tournament team, how do you feel about where they placed you?

Capel: It’s fine. It is what it is. We’re just excited and honored to be part of it.

What was practice like today? Did the guys seem tense at all?

Capel: No, they didn’t seem tense. It was light. We had a couple of days off and we got in and just tried to get a lot of shooting in, just tried to move a little bit. We’ll start really getting prepared now that we have an opponent and just look forward to that.

What do you know on the surface level about Mississippi State?

Capel: I don’t know. I mean as soon as I heard that that was our opponent, I just looked on my phone at some stats. I haven’t seen them play at all, but I know in order to be part of this tournament you have to be good. It’s something they’ve earned, so I knew they’re a good basketball team.

It’s been a long road since you’ve been here, how does it finally get a team to play in this tournament?

Capel: It’s awesome, man. I’m really just happy for these guys because they’ve worked, they’ve fought, and we’ve won and I think it’s something that is earned. For this group to be the group to kind of get back to the Big Dance, this is a pretty cool doggone thing.

How do you embrace the challenge of a quick preparation for a team you don’t really know much about?

Capel: You’re just excited about the opportunity to continue to have a season and play. So you embrace the opportunity that you have to continue to play, so you just go get ready.

I know you’re a big fan of basketball, were you watching the games this weekend and seeing all the bubble stuff?

Capel: I tried not to watch too much basketball, as far as college basketball once we lost. I just tried to get away and spend time with my family, just hang out with my family, watch some movies, watched the NBA. I caught a little bit of the games today because I was in here in the office before we practiced, but I tried to get away from it for a couple of days.

Is it human nature to have frustration watching the bracket unfold and seeing teams you beat or had better resumes than get a higher seed?

Capel: Is it human nature? Yes and no. Again, I’m excited and honored that our name was called. They’re a lot of coaches and players right now that would give anything to have heard their name. So I’m definitely excited about that. I don’t think our league gets the respect I think we should get, but there’s nothing I can do about that, except for us to hopefully go out and play well and all the teams in our league to perform well.

What is the disadvantage to playing in the first four?

Capel: I don’t know. The only thing that I can think of is just that it’s a quick turnaround. You find out your opponent a little bit after 6:00 today and then we’re going to have to play Tuesday. So it’s not a lot of preparation whereas if you play Thursday or Friday, you have a few days to prepare. You can really get into the gut of what it is the team does. For us, we’re going to have to do that very, very quickly. We’ll travel tomorrow and then we’ll figure out what time we play on Tuesday and we’ll have some on Tuesday. But that’s the only thing, it’s a quicker turnaround.

You talked how you stepped away from basketball for a few days, what did you encourage the team to do these past couple days?

Capel: Just to get away. We had two days off just to refresh mind, body, and come back Sunday and let’s be excited and ready to go.

What’s the advantage of having four guys that have played in the NCAA Tournament already?

Capel: Well we have some experience. We have guys that have been on this stage. It’s actually three, JB didn’t, that was the year they qualified and they cancelled it in Wichita. Again, just to hopefully have some experience, but look we’ve played in a great conference. We played in some really big games all year in tough environment. I think we’ll be ready and we’re excited about the opportunity to play.

What are the core principles you need to have in order to advance in the NCAA Tournament?

Capel: Well I think you have to have fresh minds and fresh legs. I think you have to have clear minds and forget everything in the past. You have to be focused on what is right in front of you and then you have to be fresh mentally and physically. You have to understand everyone is 0-0. Everyone that is a part of this tournament has done something really special, whether they’ve had an outstanding year, their whole resume, or they’ve gotten hot at the end and won their conference tournament. So you are part of a select group and you need to cherish that and go out there and leave everything out there, because you’re really only guaranteed one game. So you have to leave everything out there. I think the best way to do it is to have a clear mind and to be as fresh as you possibly can.

What do you need to do to be better defensively?

Capel: We haven’t defended well in about a month, really since the Boston College game here. It’s some little things, but they end up being big things. We have to contest a little bit harder. We have to contain the ball more. When we have two on the ball, our rotations behind us have to be on point. The effort has to be a little bit more and all of those things are even heightened now as we move forward.

What do you think caused the slide on defense?

Capel: I think our inability to practice as we started playing a little bit more. I think our inability to practice because some guys being banged up, I think that’s the thing that did it.

I’m looking at your stats minutes-wise. The difference between Nike as your sixth man and Guillermo as your seventh man is about 400 minutes in playing time, but when you look at Duke the difference between their sixth and ninth man is only 150 minutes. Does that play into the wear and tear?

Capel: Look, we’re trying to do whatever we can to win games. So from game to game, it can be different. I’m never a guy who is married to anything in particular. It’s feel and sometimes in a game you have a group that’s playing really well together so you want to stick with them. Sometimes you have a guy that’s going and sometimes you have a guys that’s not playing well. Sometimes the matchup causes you to do something different and so for me that’s what it always is, but we try to stay fresh in what we do in practice. I think that’s hurt us a little bit because we haven’t been able to have 8-9-10 guys to be able to practice.

How much do you think the committee weighed the Duke loss?

Capel: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I mean they say margin of victory and defeat is not supposed to be part of the criteria, maybe it is. I wish they would have weighed the Northwestern win a little bit more because of that, or if that’s part of the metric. Again when you look at, at least for me when I look at us and I think we had four Quad-1 wins. I think we were 7-8 against Quad-1 and Quad-2. I think we have the fourth most or tied for fourth most road wins of any team in the power-five. So I thought our resume was good. We had 15 wins in the ACC. I thought we showed that we can play away from home and win away from home. We beat some really good teams here. Obviously what we did in the non-conference after getting over a rough spot. Our only loss after that was to Vanderbilt and I think it was by only one or two. I think they’re a pretty good team. So I thought we did enough and obviously we’ve done enough to be included in this tournament. Could we have been seeded higher? Possibly, but again you have to talk to the people on the committee about that.