Vukovcan: Jeff Capel's Had 8 Years to Fix Pitt and Hasn't

For anyone that’s followed me over the years knows that I’ve consistently been a supporter of Pitt’s Jeff Capel.

I’ve cited reasons such as it being a very difficult job, bad breaks and it takes time to rebuild as reasons for the lack of progress with the Pitt men’s basketball program. I’ve went out of my way to defend him and the program.

Capel has entered year eight with Pitt and unfortunately there’s zero evidence that this team is progressing as there’s more signs of it regressing following last night’s 80-73 loss to Hofstra. This is now the second time this season that Pitt’s lost to a mid-major program, earlier falling to Quinnipiac (83-75).

Losing to Texas A&M, Central Florida and West Virginia are one thing but in no way should this team be getting outplayed for the entire game by teams such as Hofstra and Quinnipiac.

That’s exactly what happened which tells me that something is very wrong with this program.

No, Pitt doesn’t have the talent of Michigan, Duke, Gonzaga or Arizona but they have the players on the roster to not get embarrassed by mid-major teams.

That’s happened twice now and what makes it frustrating and confusing is they played well against Ohio State and Texas A&M. So, how does that happen?

I don’t claim to be a coach and I’m not around the team on a day-to-day basis to know all the inner workings, however, what I do know is that eight years is more than enough time to turn a program around. I’ll spare you listing the names of coaches in similar situations that have done so in A LOT LESS TIME.

I completely understand that this staff was expecting to have Dishon Jackson as their big man in the middle this season and that’s not happened due to a medical condition. But at the same time, he wasn’t Patrick Ewing and these early season failures all can’t be blamed on him not being here.

Yes, we can look back over the years and list things such as injuries, off-court incidents and getting snubbed by the NCAA Tournament committee as reasons for this program’s misfortunes and lack of progress. They’re all valid reasons.

However, the longer this program continues to struggle and list new things every year all those reasons just turn into excuses.

This coaching staff has been given enough time and provided with enough resources to be better that what they’ve produced. Eight years is enough time.

Do they have enough cash to be one of the top spending teams in the country or even the ACC? No, but from what I’m told, they’ve been given enough to be better than they are. In-game coaching, player development and game planning have been lacking.

If things don’t turn in a hurry, the Peterson Events Center, which used to be one of the top home court advantages in college basketball, will be empty come conference play. If that’s the case, that will something to get the attention of AD Allen Greene and Pitt administration.

If they can’t beat Hofstra and Quinnipiac, what chance do you think Pitt has against teams in what looks to be a much-improved ACC Conference?

If things continue down this path for Pitt, the obvious question becomes what will Greene and Pitt do with Capel? For those that want Capel removed, keep in mind, former AD Heather Lyke gave him a contract extension through the 2029-30 season.

That would be A LOT of money for this university to eat.

With that being the case, the future of Pitt basketball could be in the hands of new GM Jay Kuntz.

Unfortunately for Kuntz, he arrived late in the transfer portal process and had no chance of bringing in the impact type recruits and transfer portal players that he would have pursued.

Since being hired, Kuntz has helped Pitt bring in the highest recruiting class in the history of Pitt’s program, landing Top 100 talents Chase Foster, Anthony Felesi and Jermal Jones, Jr.

Those three players along with a couple members of this 2025-26 team will be the foundation of this team moving forward. From the looks of the current roster, Kuntz will be busy this offseason with a major re-do of the overall roster with transfer portal/free agents.

I have zero doubt that Kuntz will supplement this roster with talent good enough to compete and win. Kuntz didn’t turn down other bigger opportunities in order to come to Pitt to fail.

The question is who will be coaching them?

I’ll repeat, it’s been eight years, it’s time to see results and from the looks of things, we won’t be seeing them this year either.