Pitt is commenting and confirming the national report from CBS Sports Jon Rothstein that Jeff Capel would be returning next season as Pitt’s Men’s Basketball Coach.
Pitt is 51-69 and 21-53 against ACC opponents in four seasons under Capel, including a record of 11-21 this season.
Here are the statements released by both Lyke and Capel:
Heather Lyke, Pitt Director of Athletics
“Coach Capel and I met this afternoon and there is no question we both have great expectations for our men’s basketball program. We discussed the path forward for success for this program. We share the disappointment of this past season and expected to be further along in building this program back to a great source of pride for Pitt. We are committed to Jeff Capel as our head coach and leader of our team. I am confident Jeff will continue to assess and evaluate every aspect of our program and work tirelessly to continue building it the right way. He and our staff are committed to helping our student-athletes develop the consistency and habits to reach their full potential on and off the court.”
Jeff Capel, Head Coach Pitt Men’s Basketball
“The support of Heather Lyke, Chancellor Gallagher and loyal Pitt fans is greatly appreciated as we continue to work to bring back a winning culture to Pitt Basketball. My family and I love being a part of the Pittsburgh community and I am extremely proud to be the head coach at the University of Pittsburgh. While I had hoped to have been further along as a program at this point, I remain confident that we will make the adjustments necessary to get there. There is no substitute for hard work. We will do what is necessary to be known as a program that will outwork the opposition and compete with a toughness and intensity that is unrivaled. We have the opportunity to turn things around quickly by attacking every aspect of the offseason from player development to recruiting to playing style and coaching philosophy.”
“We need better players” ~ JC
Expect more of the same next season.
Bring the pain!
H2P!
Heather Lyke is a moron. Keep him…let’s see how that works, Lyke.
Wow, what happened to educated comments? Heather Lyke is our PITT AD and she has been a tremendous representative of our PITT sports program. Our sports programs have been trending in the right direction since she took over and I am thankful for her hard work and accomplishments at PITT.
So the dismal performance of the MBB program over the last 4 yrs. is trending in the right direction? Open your eyes.
who else would they have gotten to come coach here ? they tried top name coaches 4yrs ago an ended up with coach capel.
There are Lyke $15million reasons Coach Nepotism will be back next year. Plenty of great seats will be available at The Pete which will be a morgue again next year. Heather for AD of the year!!!!!
All the same people that ran Jaime Dixon out of town can’t believe capel is getting another year.
I haven’t seen anyone suggest who they would like to bring in to turn this around?
Pitt is a really hard place to win at, Dixon found a way to win and he got run out of town, Any good coach would be crazy to take a job here.
Ben H found the way to win and set up the Blueprint.. Jamie just kept the train on the tracks for quite some time before starting to run out of gas.. Obviously we are in a much worse place now.
Exactly, just like Tomlin.
Why is it so hard to win here? Seriously? Pitt had tremendous success not that long ago. Exactly what makes it so hard to win here? I don’t buy that line at all.