PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Panthers play their first ever game in the ACC Tournament after earning a double bye. Pitt-Wake Forest at 2:30p Thursday on 93.7 The Fan. A few side thoughts from Blake Hinson, Jeff Capel and Ishmael Leggett before the game.
Blake will sign
Hinson stayed and signed autographs for anyone who wanted one after his final home game on Saturday. It wasn’t a burden. He enjoyed it.
“Little do they know, I can’t believe it,” Hinson said of people wanting his attention. “Just two years ago when I was dropping off groceries at people’s front door, no one was asking for my autograph. I really like to take advantage of that type of stuff because you never know when that might be gone.”
DC home court advantage
Panthers guard Ishmael Leggett grew up in Washington DC. He said he is looking forward to having a lot of family at the game Thursday afternoon. Leggett has not only been to a few NBA Washington Wizards games, he played on that court. He is nostalgic about it.
As a 12-year-old he was part of kids’ team halftime show and said he scored five points.
Grow it
While Hinson said it’s perfect as it is and the potential of being left out is part of the drama that makes the NCAA Tournament great, Jeff Capel believes the it should expand.
Capel said he’s heard the arguments from purists that you don’t mess with something that is working. He said that was probably a concern when they expanded it from the original 16, but said it only got better.
“I think it should be changed,” Capel said. “It should be more opportunities. The NCAA Tournament is the greatest sporting event. If you give more young people opportunities to experience it. What is bad about that. I’ve never understood the argument with that because every time it’s expanded, it’s continued to get better.”
Then there is the financial component of it.
“I’ve never seen anyone not want to make more money,” Capel said. “Especially the NCAA and especially all of the lawsuits they have against them. I couldn’t imagine them not expanding at some point.”
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Women set the tone
Hinson said he’s been fired up for days to play in the ACC Tournament, by watching the SEC, Pac 12, Big 12, ACC and Big 10 women’s basketball tournaments.
“All of that was high-level basketball, watching all of that got me excited,” Hinson said. “The level of competition it was, showed me what it is going to be. I’m excited to raise that bar, touch that bar where the women set it at.”
Basketball > school
Capel described what it was like as a kid when the ACC Tournament came around every year.
“When I grew up, in North Carolina, basketball was everything,” Capel said. “You really didn’t do anything in school. The teachers would pull one of those TV’s in on the stand and you would watch it. If they couldn’t get the TV on the stand, it would be over the loudspeaker.”
“That’s how I grew up.”
When his father became an assistant coach at Wake Forest when he was in middle school, he got to attend games and worked as a ball boy at Greensboro Coliseum. He said it made him dream of playing it in which he was able to do and now be a head coach in it.