The 2018-19 Pitt men’s and women’s basketball seasons got under way last night with Pitt’s annual “Courtside at the Cathedral.”
It was the first opportunity fans got a glimpse at both new head basketball coaches: Jeff Capel and Lance White as both teams performed at a makeshift outdoor arena in the shadows of the Cathedral of Learning.
The event started with 90’s hip-hop artist Doug E. Fresh performing. Capel along with his brother and assistant coach Jason Capel have both been known to be fans of old-school hip-hop thus them likely having a hand in bringing in the talent.
Next were the introductions. The women’s team came out to a video showing the team atop the Cathedral and showing workouts of the team running up and down the steps of the iconic building in the offseason.
The men’s entrance was a little more grand. The team filmed a short two minute music video in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park in honor of the recently passed Pittsburgh hip-hop artists Mac Miller. The song of choice, of course, was Party on Fifth Ave. The video generated a minor stir on Twitter and as of Saturday morning had nearly 1,500 retweets and over 3,000 likes.
The Party on Fifth Ave. started from there. The first event held was a shooting stars competition with four teams of three in the field. Each team was comprised of a men’s player, a women’s player, and a member of the Oakland Zoo. The teams had to make a layup, a free throw, a three-pointer, then a half court shot in an allotted amount of time.
Sophomore guard Kham Davis and junior guard Cassidy Walsh won the event with Davis making a three-pointer and a half-court shot consecutively to edge out the other finalists Kene Chukwuku and Jasmine Whitney.
The next event was a Pitt student having a chance to make a half-court shot in a 30-second time slot for the chance to win a $1000 shopping spree. The benefit was, she was allowed to pick one helper to make that happen. She chose wisely by picking Jeff Capel, who eventually made the shot on about his third try to give the Pitt student the $1000 shopping spree.
The final event of the night was the dunk contest. Pitt welcomed back Doug E. Fresh to be a judge along with Roberto Clemente Jr. and a pair of former Pitt greats: Ronald Ramon and Bobby Martin. The fifth and final judge was last year’s champion and current Pitt guard, Malik Ellison.
The participants were sophomore Shamiel Stevenson along with freshmen Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens.
Johnson quickly stole the show with a running dunk from around the free-throw line. That dunk advanced him to the finals opposite Stevenson. Once again Johnson took the spotlight with a running alley-oop to himself that he finished between-the-legs for the jam that gave him a perfect score of 50. The song Xavier Johnson made the winning dunk to was fittingly “X gon’ give it to ya” by DMX.
That concluded the night’s events. Both coaches thanked everyone for coming out and welcomed fans onto the court to meet the teams and to watch the fireworks display.
The season for both teams will begin in a few weeks with the women set to take on Gannon in an exhibition on October 30th with the season opener slated for November 7th against Central Florida. The men will take on Pitt-Johnstown November 1st before the actual season opener against Youngstown State on the 6th.
