PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Following a third straight blowout loss and fourth consecutive losing season, Pitt Head Coach Jeff Capel laid it out about his program.
"We have to get better players," Capel said after a 66-46 loss in the opening round of the ACC Tournament in Brooklyn Tuesday. "It's not anything personal. We have to continue to add better players, recruit better players. We need to better develop guys."
Capel now is 51-69 as Pitt head coach. He said after the game, he has no assurances from Pitt Athletic Director Heather Lyke he will return next year stating they haven't had those conversations. Capel is signed through the 2026-27 season after a two-year extension agreed two years ago.
"I think it's really hard to win," Capel said. "When you don't have a reference point of winning and older guys in your program that have won. It's the most difficult thing to understand the discipline daily that it takes in order to become consistent. We have not had that since I've been here."
The former Duke player and assistant then talked aggressively of hitting the transfer portal this offseason.
"Teams can drastically change if you are able to get the right guys," Capel said. "In some cases, if you get lucky, you get lucky. You look at Wake Forest and you look at the huge jump that they made (17 more wins this season from last), just from the portal and the development of a couple of returning guys. Miami (too)."
This after an 11-21 Panthers season which includes wins at North Carolina, St. John's and Florida State, beating Syracuse and Louisville at home. However, it also included losses to The Citadel, UMBC and Monmouth and eight ACC games in which the Panthers lost by double-figures.
"I'm proud of my guys," Capel said. "This has been a really long year & a really hard year. We've had a lot of adversity, right during the first exhibition game is when it all started. It hasn't looked like it over the last two weeks, but our team gotten better. We continue to show up and work and try to get better."
"It would have been easy for us to fold, to give up and give in. The things we went through, the close losses, the heart-breaking losses. We continued to show up and continued to fight. We showed glimpses of what we could possibly be but we weren't able to be consistent with it."
John Hugley
The sophomore center was the only player with a conference post-season award. Hugley named Honorable Mention All-ACC after averaging 14.7 points and 7.9 rebounds.
"The lessons I took from this year is staying together and when things are going down, stand up," Hugley said. "Everything is not always going to be a good thing. You got to stay up at all times, never give up and show up."
"Keep getting better as a player and as a person. Just keep getting better that's the only thing I could do now, keep getting better."
Careers end
Only at Pitt for one season as a graduate transfer from Stony Brook, Mouhamadou Gueye finished with 12 points and six rebounds in his final game. Gueye led the team with 43, three-pointers and with 67 blocks. He had eight blocks in the win at Florida State and 27 points against Georgia Tech.
He still would have another year of eligibility, but former walk-on guard Onyebuchi Ezeakudo went through Senior Day activities and likely finished his career playing 15 minutes with a pair of rebounds and no points in his final collegiate game. Ezeakudo had a career-high 11 points against Syracuse in January.
