‘We needed better players’ Allen Greene talks Jeff Capel

PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – In a first opportunity to answer questions about his decision, Pitt athletic director Allen Greene explained why he kept basketball coach Jeff Capel and what is different about the program now.

While you can point to a number of reasons Pitt was 13-20 last season, Greene bottom-lined it.

“We needed better players,” Greene said.

“In today’s world, it takes money to have better players.”

So, Pitt set forth to build a better infrastructure around the program is how Greene put it. They hired a general manager, invested ‘a significant amount of money’, more than he thought they were going to initially spend.

“We are fortunate to have some of our donors and local businesses that have stepped up to help us build this roster,” Greene told a group of Pittsburgh reporters. “We want to prove them right. We want to make sure that they have invested wisely and use this as a launching pad to continue to get investment from our community to help us have some fun in the Pete.”

Another part of the improvement was making changes to the coaching staff. Greene said they had eight seasons with the same coaches, and while it wasn’t directed necessarily at their abilities, it was time for a change, and that included Jeff Capel’s brother Jason.

“After a while you just need a different look, need different voices sometimes in the locker room,” Greene said Thursday. “Capel was very passionate about his position on it. I was passionate on my position on it. We had several conversations about what the staff should look like.”

“Ultimately, we made the decision to move on and bring two new people in. Jeff has been an absolute pro and I respect the way he’s handled the situation and look forward to supporting him this year.”

He’s also looking for your support.

“People want their cake and eat it too, so if we want our cake, it’s going to cost,” Greene said. “We are trying to explain to people that we’ve pulled all of our rev-share money in. We are maxed out in terms of how we do it. How we go above the cap is through local businesses and doing NIL deals.”

“We have a lot more businesses in our community than a lot of other schools in our league do. That’s an advantage to us. We have to unlock that and we have worked hard in the past several months to do so and we will continue to do so because December is right around the corner.”

Greene defends Capel’s coaching ability. He said they’ve sat and talked basketball a lot. Greene is impressed with how connected Capel is, the relationship he has with his players. Now he feels like they have better players and the goal is to return to March Madness.

“We are committed to this program being successful, making it to the NCAA Tournament,” Greene said. “That is our goal, that is our start-off goal. We are looking forward to this team competing.”