Capel Told Pitt Team 'We Should Expect to Get Booed' Ahead of NC State Loss
PITTSBURGH — The Pitt men’s basketball program is at rock bottom under head coach Jeff Capel, and there’s no denying that.
Capel understood entering the NC State game Saturday that the home crowd could turn hostile — on the home team.
“I told them when we got back from Boston College the next day as we were preparing for this game — cuz it was gonna be our first time at home since the Louisville game — we should expect to get booed if we’re not playing well. You should expect it to be low energy, and we gotta control what we can control, this is the reality,” Capel said following an 81-72 loss to NC State.
That expectation certainly became a reality inside the Petersen Events Center Saturday afternoon in front of 5,572 fans, which is the lowest home attendance of the Capel era for an ACC game. As the Panthers dropped to 1-6 in the ACC with the loss, which is the worst start in conference under the current head coach, fans in attendance let Capel feel their displeasure.
The boos came throughout the game, but the heckling mounted as the contest came to a close — and it was not hard to hear them inside the rather quiet and cavernous Pete, with one coming from a fan saying, “thanks for wasting our money, Jeff.”
“It doesn’t get under my skin,” Capel said. “I’ve been through this, but I’ll tell you this. When I was a player, my senior year at Duke, I got booed at home. I’m probably the only Duke player ever to get booed in Cameron, or certainly, since the 80s, and it messed me up.
“When we played Louisville last, the fans did that, whether they were doing it to me or the team, it was the first timeout that we took, and it messed our guys up. I mean, to the point, I found out after the game, or the next day, they were talking about it at halftime. I’ve tried to tell them, you gotta understand this place, where you are. Everyone’s frustrated. No one’s more frustrated than our team. No one’s more frustrated than me or our coaching staff.”
The 41-point Louisville loss a week ago came as the worst of the Capel era. During that loss, Pitt recorded the second-largest halftime deficit at home in program history. It was followed up by a defeat on the road against the lowest-ranked high-major team in the country. Pitt added to the losing streak with the NC State loss, a game in which they led by seven nearly midway through the second half.
“I don’t know if it’s because I grew up the son of a coach, so I grew up in the arena. I don’t know if it’s because I was a player. I can’t imagine ever booing,” Capel said. “So for me, that’s what it is. And, if I were at a game with my kids, and they were booing, I would light their a– up.
“Now again, it may be different for me because I grew up in it. I understand it though, like you pay money to come see, and if a team is not playing hard, so against Louisville, I got it. We were god awful against Louisville, and it looked like the energy, and it looked like we weren’t playing hard. Especially after the first call timeout quick, so I get it to a certain extent.”
While Capel claims the booing does not get to him, his players, on the other hand, have felt the pressure.
“I got booed at the end when I was at Oklahoma,” he said. “I got heckled at the end when I was at Oklahoma. Doesn’t bother me, cuz there’s nothing I can do about it, as far as what people are saying. I don’t control that, I’ve gotten to the point, I’ve matured enough to the point where that stuff doesn’t bother me anymore.
“But it bothers our guys. I mean, early in the year, I can’t remember after what game we lost. It was in December, early December. So it was after either Quinnipiac or Hofstra. One of the guys came into my office the next day and was just like, ‘Coach, man, whatever I need to do to help. He’s like, look, I don’t like what they’re saying about you.’ These guys can’t get away from it. And so, what I mean by that, they, this generation, they can’t — and I know, cuz I got kids at home – they can’t get away from social media. They can’t, it’s like they’re addicted to it. And so, they see it there, in all those spaces. I’m pretty sure it’s really bad right now, about me, about us, about them individually. When it’s happening in your own building, that stuff for an 18 to 22, 23-year-old that’s just trying to play their butts off and trying to get better and trying to work. And so, I feel for them.”
Capel says he empathizes with his players, but he also puts it on their shoulders to help fix the problem.
“I have empathy for you, but I don’t feel sorry for you, and you shouldn’t feel sorry for you. As a young man, becoming a man, you can never feel sorry for yourself. You gotta fix it, you gotta work, you gotta buckle down, you gotta look yourself in the mirror. And we have to try to fix, we have to be honest, and then we gotta try to fix it.”
Pitt left plenty of points once again on the hardwood against the Wolfpack as the Panthers went 11-for-25 from the free-throw line and went 8-for-20 on layups.
The schedule does not get any easier for Pitt as it will take on four currently ranked top-25 opponents — Louisville, Clemson, North Carolina and Duke — over the next six games.
