Capel family no stranger to North Carolina's Smith Center

The ACC has six teams with winning records in league play. That’s fewer than half of the conference members.

Four of them show up on Pitt’s schedule over the final 18 days of the regular season, starting Wednesday with the Panthers’ trip to Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., against North Carolina.

Jeff Capel knows it will be a challenge for his team that will be seeking its longest winning streak of the season (three games) after defeating Florida State and N.C. State last week. The Tar Heels (18-7, 10-4) have won six of their past seven and are tied with Miami for second place behind co-leaders Duke and Notre Dame.

North Carolina will be a gauge for Pitt (10-16, 5-10), an opportunity to prove it can compete with the ACC’s best teams in a season that is not one of the conference’s best. Only No. 9 Duke is ranked in the Associated Press Top 25.

Visitors typically struggle in Smith Center. The Tar Heels have won 23 of their past 25 home games, but the Capel family has excelled there.

Jeff Capel led Fayetteville South View to a state championship there when he was the 1993 North Carolina High School Player of the Year.

Brother Jason, a Pitt assistant, was a two-time All-ACC forward for the Tar Heels in 2001 and 2002. In North Carolina’s Final Four season of 2000, he recorded the second triple-double in school history (16 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists against Buffalo).

“It’s one of the historic places in our sport, one of the historic programs in our sport,” Jeff Capel said.

But Capel doesn’t like to dwell on the past while he tries to build a promising future at Pitt. He knows what matters most is how his big men — John Hugley and Mouhamadou Gueye — will be able to deal with North Carolina’s Armando Bacot (6-foot-10, 240 pounds) and Brady Manek (6-9, 230).

“It will be a great challenge for us,” he said. “Those two guys are older. They have a lot of experience in college. John does not. Mo has experience but not at this level. I think that’s a big difference. Hopefully, we can hold up and do a good job.”

Capel called Bacot “one of the best players in our league, not just one of the best big guys.”

Bacot averages a double-double (16.6 points, seventh in the ACC, and 12.2 rebounds, first). He’s the only ACC player averaging double digits in rebounds.

“He’s got great hands, great touch,” Capel said. “He’s an elite offensive rebounder (3.7 per game, No. 1 in that category, too).

“He plays with great physicality. (Coach) Hubert (Davis) and the rest of the guys there have done a really good job of developing him. He seems to be in better shape. He’s able to play at a high level for longer periods of time.”

He’s also second in the ACC in field-goal percentage (58.1%).

“His ability to score 15, 17 feet in is at a very high level,” Capel said. “Hopefully, we can do a pretty decent job in trying to just slow him down a little bit. We know we’re not going to stop him.”

Manek, a transfer from Oklahoma, presents a unique challenge because he is one of the Tar Heels’ best 3-point shooters (57 for 144, 39.6%).

Davis, who played at North Carolina before a 13-year NBA career, was named the Tar Heels’ coach last year four days after Roy Williams retired.

Capel has noticed some changes in North Carolina’s playing style, and Manek’s 3-point artistry is at the forefront of that.

“They had some bigs, particularly Luke Maye (6-8, 240), who shot 3s before,” Capel said, “but not at the rate that Manek does it. They are really different.

“That’s a testament to Hubert, his belief in himself, his belief in how he wants to play. And they’re really good at it.”

North Carolina’s only defeats before the calendar turned to 2022 were to top-20 teams Purdue (No. 5), Tennessee (No. 16) and Kentucky (No. 4).

North Carolina’s loss in the past seven games was against Duke (87-67) at home.

“We’ve been tied together better defensively,” Davis said. “I feel like our togetherness, our talking has been better.”

Nothing has surprised him in his new role. He was Williams’ assistant for nine seasons after five years as a college basketball analyst for ESPN. So he understands the game and its demands.

“There is a difference between making suggestions as an assistant coach and making decisions as a head coach,” he said.

But that’s not the biggest adjustment, he said.

“This is the first time I’ve had the spotlight on me,” he said.

“First time I’ve been in the limelight where my family has been in it as well. My career in the NBA, that’s me. When I was with ESPN, that’s me. As an assistant coach, that’s me.

“Now, this is the first time where my wife and my three kids — they go to school and my wife goes to the grocery store — the camera is on them. That’s the biggest difference.”