PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Pitt head coach Jeff Capel said the West Virginia experience will help them Wednesday night. They took those lessons and beat a pair of teams from the Colonial Athletic Association. Now the Panthers host Vanderbilt, from the SEC, at 9p.
“We are still trying to figure our team out, but I like the steps we’ve made over the last week, week and a half,” Capel said.
The Commodores have a couple of huge names in basketball circles. They are coached by North Carolina All-American and NBA All-Star Jerry Stackhouse and their best player is Scottie Pippen, Junior. The son of the Chicago Bulls legend.
Pippen is a 6’3” junior voted the SEC Preseason Player of the Year. He was All-SEC First Team last year and set a school record averaging 20.8 points a game as a sophomore. That equated to 457 points in that one season and he also dished 4.9 assists.
“Pippen is a guy who can control the tempo of a game,” Capel said. “He’s a really good player. His pace and feel is really good. His ability to read and pick up things as the game is going on, process things, is really good.”
Pippen isn’t even Vanderbilt’s leading scorer, 6’5” junior guard/forward Jordan Wright is averaging 18.8 per game and making 47% of the three-point shots he takes with 5.3 rebounds a game.
Vandy also forces 19.8 turnovers a game and their head coach understands what he has.
“It’s a younger Pittsburgh team, hopefully we can take advantage of our experience,” Stackhouse said. “Maybe get off to a good start. They run a lot of sets, a lot of things we can handle. I think we can have some success.”
Carolina Bond
Capel and Stackhouse go back to ninth grade, playing on the same AAU team. They were also rivals in huge high school and a couple of classic Duke-North Carolina matchups.
“The thing I respect about him,” Capel said. “He showed how serious he was about wanting to coach. He went and started an AAU program, not just started it, but coached. He went to the G-League and won a championship. I think it shows how serious he was about his craft.”
“I remember when I did USA basketball with the national team. He would come and watch us practice. The thing I would marvel at, you have this great player. This former NBA All-Star and one of the top shooting guards in the NBA during his time and he would be out there with a notebook.”
“It showed how serious he was about wanting to do this. It wasn’t ‘hey, I’m this NBA player, I should just get these opportunities’.
Now these friends meet again, this time neither can score a point, grab a rebound or even D-up anyone. Tip at 9p with Panthers pregame at 8:30p Wednesday on 93.7 The Fan.