Capel, staff try to fix frontcourt

Panthers come up short on big men

As Jeff Capel sees it recruiting is never easy, regardless of the color of your polo and the college logo emblazoned on it.

When he was an assistant for seven years at Duke, he was representing one of college basketball’s ubiquitous brands, and a place that has become an industrial-size vacuum for top talent the past several years, but he had to compete in a cutthroat world with programs that had similar resources and offered the same kind of prestige.

At Pitt, he had to traverse the obstacles that came with inheriting a last-place team.

The move required an adjustment, one that Capel, 14 months into his tenure, believes he has made.

At a time of year when recruiting and roster-building is the primary focus of many programs — and with his program holding three open scholarships — Capel is pleased with where the Panthers are in their work to position themselves for the 2019-20 season, from his current four-player class to — from a big-picture standpoint — their outlook beyond the next recruiting class and season.

“I think we’ve acclimated,” Capel said in an

interview Wednesday with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I understood that coming in. Fortunately, I had been other places prior to Duke where you didn’t do that. I think that philosophy is unique to Duke. I understood that. I think we’ve adapted. I think we’ve had success in recruiting, maybe not as fast as we would like and maybe people would like. I don’t really know what people think. I concentrate on me and us and our program.”

That acclimation was no small task. It was tireless work that went far beyond a talking point.

At Duke, Capel wouldn’t be given a list of players to recruit at a given position, but rather a single name. From there, it was on him to get that player, often one ranked among the top-30 prospects nationally. At Pitt, especially after it was 0-19 in the ACC the season before he arrived, he not only had to expand his scope, but he also had to be imaginative in doing so.

His first class was proof that he was capable of doing so, as he landed two players who reclassified — Trey McGowens and Au’Diese Toney, both top-150 recruits — and Xavier Johnson, who decommitted at Nebraska and was in search of a new home. Capel did so with only a few official visits left at his disposal, getting McGowens to commit without ever visiting campus, Toney to commit two hours into his visit and Johnson to take an unofficial visit before he gave his pledge.

Those early successes make some of his recent shortcomings more confounding. The Panthers’ 2019 class is currently No. 47 on 247 Sports’ team rankings, placing it ninth among the ACC’s 15 programs. That’s not a poor standing, particularly given the hole Pitt was in, but its 2019 quartet is short on big men. Making that need that much more troublesome has been how close Pitt has come to securing commitments from talented prospects, whether it was Khadim Sy (committed to Mississippi), Qudus Wahab (Georgetown), Tyrese Samuel (Seton Hall), Anthony Walker (Miami) or Olivier Robinson-Nkamhoua (Tennessee).

What those misses have created is something of a void in the frontcourt, with the recently signed Karim Coulibaly the only incoming player taller than 6 feet 6.

“We need to add,” Capel said. “That’s a specific area where we need to add. It has to be value. It has to be someone we feel like can come in and help us, but just as important, that has upside and can develop.”

With three open scholarships, Capel and his staff are continuing their search, aiming to do what they did in 2018: Look for recruits from any background, be it high school players, transfers, graduate transfers, junior-college transfers or overseas prospects. If there’s a player he believes provides value and is worth tying up a scholarship for four seasons, he’ll look to add them. If not, he said, they’ll stand pat.

Capel believes in the four players he has signed.

“We’ve addressed needs,” he said. “We have really talented young men who are really good young men.”

At a program that will have to focus on player development almost as much as it does recruiting, some of the most encouraging signs have come from players already on the roster.

Terrell Brown, the primary big man last season, has embodied some of that hope. Last season, Capel gave players the opportunity to go home during the first of the university’s two summer sessions, with the 6-10 Providence, R.I., native opting to do so. By the time he came back, he was somewhat overwhelmed by the progress some of his teammates had made, putting him behind the proverbial eight ball. When he met with Capel after last season, before his coach could even get a word out, Brown made a point saying he wanted to be there for both sessions, about how he wanted to get back to work and laying out the areas in which he wanted to improve.

It’s a promising sign. “That was a complete 180 from how he was last year,” Capel said. “Attitude-wise, I think how he has worked, I think he was able to have some success last year in spots. I thought he had a good year. At times, I thought he played really, really well. I think that has given him some confidence.”

Chukwuka to miss time

Whatever improvement Brown shows will become especially important given Pitt’s dwindling frontcourt options. Capel said junior forward Kene Chukwuka, who averaged 17.8 minutes per game as part of a rotation with Brown, will “probably” miss a portion of next season, perhaps even a”significant amount of time.” The 6-9 Stockholm, Sweden native underwent hip surgery in late March.

N’Dir done

Guard Sidy N’Dir will not be receiving a sixth season of eligibility, Capel said. The graduate transfer missed much of his junior season at New Mexico State after a season-ending foot injury, appearing in just nine games and theoretically opening the door for a medical redshirt. That door is now closed.