University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: ANTHONY SORBELLINI
Lucas: Finding The Edge
February 2, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Pitt has found an edge that works against Carolina.
By Adam Lucas
Under Jeff Capel, Pittsburgh has found exactly the edge that works for them against Carolina.
The Panthers take any game against the Tar Heels very seriously. You could see it in the way Capel—a Duke graduate, of course—talked about the game in the postgame.
This is not just an Atlantic Coast Conference game to Pitt. This is family pride.
"(Jason) wore that jersey with a lot of pride," Jeff Capel said of his brother, who played at Carolina before most of the students he yelled at after the game on Wednesday were born. "Since he left here, there's been a lot of disrespect towards him."
Jeff Capel—who says he is not on social media but seems to believe he has a great deal of insight into it—went on to describe an extremely far-fetched theory revolving around a Twitter graphic that somehow "disrespected" Jason Capel because of the fact that, as I understand it, Creighton Lebo wears jersey number 25, which happens to be Jason's old number.
This is, of course, ludicrous. But it doesn't really matter if the Capel family is right about the intentions of the graphic (they aren't). It only matters that they believe it. It won't be social media next year, but it will be something else, like an incident from the 2009 NCAA Tournament that Jeff Capel referenced Wednesday night that his family has clearly held on to for 14 years.
Write this down now: no matter what day the game is played, no matter what TV network it is on, no matter who is wearing either set of jerseys, Pitt will show up motivated to play against Carolina next season. It's stopped being surprising. It's not a particular scouting philosophy that another opponent could copy. Pitt really feels this game, and you can see it in the way they play.
You and I may not understand it. It doesn't matter. For purposes of Carolina-Pittsburgh, the Tar Heels simply must understand how the Capel crew treats this game, how every possession is intensely personal and every defensive stop is a restoration of their family's good name. In many ways, it's similar to the vendetta Roy Williams always held against NC State, one created mostly by the fact that the Wolfpack had the temerity to be pretty good at basketball when Williams was in school.
In the ACC, you take an edge anywhere you can find it. Pitt has found it against Carolina. Listening to Capel's postgame comments after his team's 65-64 win, it's not too difficult to picture what practices must have been like the last couple days, with lots of talk about disrespect and toughness and family.
This year, the Panthers have the perfect collection of talented transfers and older players to execute that we'll-show-them attitude. One hot streak from Nelly Cummings was enough to give them a cushion and just the right supplement to Jamarius Burton's headlong drives to the rim, which ultimately provided the decisive free throws.
Cummings and Burton, Pitt's two leading scorers, are each on their third different college team, as is Blake Hinson. The other double-figure scorer, Nike Sibande, is on his second. It's very easy to imagine that this cast would connect with the Capels' message about this particular game—this hoity-toity blueblood is disrespecting these blue-collar Pittsburgh folks.
In this series, the game is played that way almost every time. There will be a lot of contact under the basket, there's going to be plenty of chatter, and there may eventually be double technical fouls, as there were early in the second half as the officials attempted to get a grip on the game.
Everything feels very difficult against Pitt. Even as Armando Bacot was going for another double-double, this time with 15 points and 11 rebounds, he made just three of ten shots while drawing 11 fouls.
"They were physical with him," Hubert Davis told Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. "And they bothered him."
The approach is working for Pitt, because they've now won five of six in the series. If you aren't going to match the opponent's personal vendetta—the last time Carolina had that against Pitt was when Cameron Johnson was in Chapel Hill—you better be able to execute perfectly. The Tar Heels didn't do that on Wednesday, most notably in the final minute.
Carolina had the ball up by one point with under a minute to play, but suffered a turnover when a teammate busted his assignment with Bacot trapped near the baseline.
"Up by one with a minute to go, all you need is score-stop," Davis said. "We didn't get a score and we didn't get a stop. If you can't get a score and a stop, it's going to be very hard to win."
Under Jeff Capel, Pittsburgh has found exactly the edge that works for them against Carolina.
The Panthers take any game against the Tar Heels very seriously. You could see it in the way Capel—a Duke graduate, of course—talked about the game in the postgame.
This is not just an Atlantic Coast Conference game to Pitt. This is family pride.
"(Jason) wore that jersey with a lot of pride," Jeff Capel said of his brother, who played at Carolina before most of the students he yelled at after the game on Wednesday were born. "Since he left here, there's been a lot of disrespect towards him."
Jeff Capel—who says he is not on social media but seems to believe he has a great deal of insight into it—went on to describe an extremely far-fetched theory revolving around a Twitter graphic that somehow "disrespected" Jason Capel because of the fact that, as I understand it, Creighton Lebo wears jersey number 25, which happens to be Jason's old number.
This is, of course, ludicrous. But it doesn't really matter if the Capel family is right about the intentions of the graphic (they aren't). It only matters that they believe it. It won't be social media next year, but it will be something else, like an incident from the 2009 NCAA Tournament that Jeff Capel referenced Wednesday night that his family has clearly held on to for 14 years.
Write this down now: no matter what day the game is played, no matter what TV network it is on, no matter who is wearing either set of jerseys, Pitt will show up motivated to play against Carolina next season. It's stopped being surprising. It's not a particular scouting philosophy that another opponent could copy. Pitt really feels this game, and you can see it in the way they play.
You and I may not understand it. It doesn't matter. For purposes of Carolina-Pittsburgh, the Tar Heels simply must understand how the Capel crew treats this game, how every possession is intensely personal and every defensive stop is a restoration of their family's good name. In many ways, it's similar to the vendetta Roy Williams always held against NC State, one created mostly by the fact that the Wolfpack had the temerity to be pretty good at basketball when Williams was in school.
In the ACC, you take an edge anywhere you can find it. Pitt has found it against Carolina. Listening to Capel's postgame comments after his team's 65-64 win, it's not too difficult to picture what practices must have been like the last couple days, with lots of talk about disrespect and toughness and family.
This year, the Panthers have the perfect collection of talented transfers and older players to execute that we'll-show-them attitude. One hot streak from Nelly Cummings was enough to give them a cushion and just the right supplement to Jamarius Burton's headlong drives to the rim, which ultimately provided the decisive free throws.
Cummings and Burton, Pitt's two leading scorers, are each on their third different college team, as is Blake Hinson. The other double-figure scorer, Nike Sibande, is on his second. It's very easy to imagine that this cast would connect with the Capels' message about this particular game—this hoity-toity blueblood is disrespecting these blue-collar Pittsburgh folks.
In this series, the game is played that way almost every time. There will be a lot of contact under the basket, there's going to be plenty of chatter, and there may eventually be double technical fouls, as there were early in the second half as the officials attempted to get a grip on the game.
Everything feels very difficult against Pitt. Even as Armando Bacot was going for another double-double, this time with 15 points and 11 rebounds, he made just three of ten shots while drawing 11 fouls.
"They were physical with him," Hubert Davis told Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. "And they bothered him."
The approach is working for Pitt, because they've now won five of six in the series. If you aren't going to match the opponent's personal vendetta—the last time Carolina had that against Pitt was when Cameron Johnson was in Chapel Hill—you better be able to execute perfectly. The Tar Heels didn't do that on Wednesday, most notably in the final minute.
Carolina had the ball up by one point with under a minute to play, but suffered a turnover when a teammate busted his assignment with Bacot trapped near the baseline.
"Up by one with a minute to go, all you need is score-stop," Davis said. "We didn't get a score and we didn't get a stop. If you can't get a score and a stop, it's going to be very hard to win."
Players Mentioned
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