How Jamie Dixon, Jeff Capel almost reached the Final Four as opposing coaches

Coaches don’t typically play the what-if game.

They prefer to dwell on how seasons actually develop, their logical thought process recognizing that no championships are won upon someone’s speculation.

On that count, Jamie Dixon didn’t disappoint. The man deals in reality like it’s a royal mandate.

On the 15th anniversary of Pitt’s 2009 Elite Eight team — the one that lost to Villanova, 78-76, on Scottie Reynolds’ last-second dash toward a tiebreaking basket — Dixon and Jeff Capel were asked a question.

What if Pitt, coached by Dixon, and Oklahoma, led by Capel, had met in the 2009 Final Four? Pitt only had to defeat Villanova; Oklahoma needed to find a way to get past eventual national champion North Carolina in another Elite Eight matchup.

Neither made it.

What if Pitt played Jeff Capel’s Oklahoma team in the 2009 Final Four? pic.twitter.com/hWBKG3Phct

— Jerry DiPaola (@JDiPaola_Trib) February 2, 2024

But that team might have been the finest in Pitt basketball history. It was honored Saturday night during the Panthers’ game with Notre Dame at Petersen Events Center along with the 1974 team that won a school-record 22 games in a row.

Speaking Friday night from Fort Worth, Texas, where his TCU team played Texas on Saturday, Dixon was reluctant to address the question. He answered it, anyway.

“That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ going on there,” he said.

Yet he knew his Pitt team that year and how desperately his players wanted to win. The Pitt record-tying 31 victories were testament to that.

“Those guys were looking forward to playing anybody,” Dixon said. “Our league (the Big East, which Pitt didn’t win that year) had prepared us for it. There wasn’t anybody we feared, but at the same time I’m sure there were a lot of teams like that.”

Capel, who is the second successor to Dixon at Pitt, took a shot at the question, but with all due respect to the Panthers of 15 years ago.

“I think we (Oklahoma) would have won. I’m not going to say they would have won,” he said. “But I will say, in the second week of January, around that time, I thought (Oklahoma) and (North) Carolina were the two best teams. I started watching (other teams). The one team that I saw that I didn’t want to play (in the NCAA Tournament) was this Pitt team because they were good. That was the main reason.

“But the other reason is I knew they wouldn’t be afraid of my guy. I had a guy (Blake Griffin, who later that year was the first overall selection in the NBA Draft) that most people were intimidated by.”

Capel knew that Pitt team because he had tried to recruit its center, DeJuan Blair, from Schenley High School. “Before I realized he lived right around the corner from Pitt,” he said.

“I just saw the toughness. I knew they wouldn’t be intimidated. That was the team I didn’t want to see.”

Capel said he was impressed by “how hard they play, how well they’re coached, how good they are defensively. And, really, how physical they were. They would have gone after my guy and they would have had a lot guys to do it. They had a lot of bodies to throw at him.

“They were both really, really good teams. The thing that’s ironic, when I took the job at Oklahoma, Scottie Reynolds was supposed to come and play for me. If we would have had him, I think we would have beat Carolina.”

Reynolds committed to Oklahoma when Kelvin Sampson was its coach. When Sampson left for Indiana and was replaced by Capel, Oklahoma granted Reynolds’ request for a release from his letter of intent.

Dixon said Pitt was an “elite offensive team” that season. Pitt didn’t lose its first game until Jan. 17 (16-0 at the time) and was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, finishing 31-5 and matching the record of Dixon’s first Pitt team of 2003-2004.

He said what made the team great were “great players.”

• Sam Young (19.2 points per game)

• Blair (who averaged a double-double, 15.7/12.3 rebounds)

• Levance Fields (who set a Pitt record with 270 assists)

• Jermaine Dixon (51 steals)

• Tyrell Biggs (49.5% from the field)

Those five players started in all 36 games except one that Blair missed, but the bench was stocked with talent such as Gilbert Brown (now a Pitt assistant), Brad Wanamaker, Ashton Gibbs, Gary McGhee and Nasir Robinson.

Jermaine Dixon … should it have been a 5-second call? pic.twitter.com/AsOi7viC9T

— Jerry DiPaola (@JDiPaola_Trib) February 3, 2024

“We were deep. Brad Wanamaker and Ashton Gibbs coming off the bench,” Jamie Dixon said. “That tells you how good a team that was. We were wide. We were strong. We were physical, but we weren’t extremely long.

“It was a tough group,” he said, noting players came from such places as Baltimore, New York, New Jersey and Pittsburgh. “Guys with a chip on their shoulder.”

In the fateful game against Villanova, Pitt trailed 76-72 with 20 seconds left, but a layup by Blair, a steal by Dixon and two foul shots by Fields secured a tie.

Pitt guarded the inbounds pass so tightly that some in Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden were thinking about a five-second violation. Finally, Reggie Redding took his time and found Dante Cunningham, who wasn’t his first choice. Cunningham delivered a pass to Reynolds, who was running away from Jermaine Dixon.

Jamie Dixon did not think it was a five-second violation, but he said, “We had them, really, struggling to get it in and it turned into almost an advantage for them.”

Jermaine Dixon, who was in town Friday night for the weekend celebration, said he watched Reynolds streak for the basket and, in his mind, said, “Oh my God.” Reynolds ended up scoring on a floater over Brown.

“Gil did the best he could,” Jermaine Dixon said. “Now that I go back and look at it, I really could have went for the steal. Watching him get to the basket and lay that ball up, it hurt. It hurt so bad. We really felt like we should have won that game. Villanova was the only team that gave us issues that year. We thought we were the best team in the country.”

He said it took him “years, honestly,” to get over the defeat.

“The first time I went back to watch it was 2013, four years removed from it,” he said. “I probably could start laughing about it in 2017. We started a Pitt group chat. That was the first time we actually started having conversations about it. OK, we past it now.”

To this day, Jermaine Dixon and Fields remain good friends as they were as teammates, but Dixon said, “Levance was so mad at me. Levance didn’t talk to us for probably a month after the season.”

Jamie Dixon, who has been head coach at Pitt or TCU since 2003, said the loss was disappointing, but another season loomed. Pitt was a No. 1 seed in the 2011 NCAA Tournament, too.

Asked if he still thinks about it, he chuckled and said, “Which season? I’ve had so many close ones.”

Just this season, TCU won two games at the buzzer, lost three by one- and two-point margins and in overtime and defeated Baylor in triple overtime.

“I focus and remember the good times and all the wins, all the many wins we had in Pittsburgh,” he said, pointing out he often visits the city in the summer to attend a Pirates game or go to Steelers training camp. “The people. I remember all the friendships and fond memories.

“Losses are hard on coaches, but the key is to not let it lead to the next season. If you’re asking me if I’m staying up at night on a play or blaming anybody, no.”