Jeff Capel puts a new face on Pitt basketball

Almost all of the seats inside Petersen Events Center were empty Thursday afternoon, but there was something familiar about the sounds in the air.

The bounce of a basketball, the squeak of sneakers on hardwood, the clap of hands when someone put on a show and, of course, the authoritative voice of Pitt coach Jeff Capel, clearly in charge during the first official practice of the season.

It’s not really basketball season on the Pitt campus — football still has two-thirds of its season to go — but Capel is busy putting the pieces of his program back together. In his way. The only way he knows how.

The first game is more than a month away — there will be an open-to-the-public scrimmage Oct. 9 at the Pete — but the work Capel, his assistants and 16 players are doing now will set a tone, he hopes.

After six players left the program (including Justin Champagnie to the Toronto Raptors) and another six were added (including sophomore John Hugley, who was suspended for most of 2020-21), the team clearly has a different look.

Xavier Johnson and Au’Diese Toney, the team’s second- and third-leading scorers behind Champagnie last year, left the team before its last game. Three others bailed soon after the end of the season.

Capel reacted by finding players, he believes, are committed to Pitt and, just as important, to each other.

While talking to reporters after practice Thursday, Capel referenced how the Pitt teams earlier in this century were successful by adhering to those principles.

“When (Pitt) was one of the better programs in the country, they had a toughness. They had a togetherness,” he said.

“There was never one guy, even if it was a great player like DeJuan (Blair) or a great leader like Levance (Fields) or a great leader and great player like Brandin (Knight). They always understood that they needed each other. That’s what we have to do.

“We wanted to get guys who wanted to be a part of something, that felt like they had something to prove and, more importantly, wanted to be here. They believe in what we’re doing and how we’re doing it because when we do it the right way, it works and we’ll win when we do it the right way.

“I’ve always believed, back when I played and watching my dad coaching teams, that if there’s love there you can coach them hard. I felt we’ve done that every day since we’ve been here. We’re going to coach the heck out of them and see what happens.”

The roster includes the highly regarded recruiting class of 2020 — all five members returned this season, including point guard Femi Odukale — plus four seniors, redshirt junior Ithiel Horton (who shot 37% from beyond the 3-point arc last season), 20-year-old freshman Nate Santos and junior college transfer Chris Payton.

Returning senior Nike Sibande is joined by three classmates who played elsewhere last season: Dan Oladapo (Oakland, Mich.), Jamarius Burton (Texas Tech by way of Wichita State) and Mouhamadou Gueye (Stony Brook).

“He’s a really serious kid,” Capel said of Burton. “Incredibly mature just as young man — man, now — little bit different from what we’ve had.

“He and Mo (Gueye) are probably more mature than a lot of the college guys that I’ve been around and that’s including me when I was their age. Their approach to things, how they see the world, the importance of work and being a part of something.”

Gueye (6-foot-9, 210 pounds) will help give Pitt a presence in the paint, complementing Hugley (6-9, 240). Gueye was the American East Defensive Player of the Year in 2020-21 while averaging 9.7 points and 7.1 rebounds. But the return of Hugley could turn out to be as significant as any offseason personnel move.

Capel said Hugley gives Pitt a post presence that’s “different than we’ve had since I’ve been here.”

“I thought his last two games last year (before his suspension), he was really starting to figure it out,” Capel said.

He was suspended when he was charged with criminal conspiracy and receiving stolen property after police said he took a woman’s car from Central Oakland in July, 2020. Prosecutors withdrew the charges in May.

Hugley wasn’t with the team for the final 2½ months last season, but Capel said players and coaches remained part of his daily routine. Hugley responded with a 3.0 grade-point average in the second semester.

“We talked almost every day,” Sibande said. “He knows how much we need him. He was looking at the games, knowing he could be in the game, affecting the game.”

Roster turnover takes many forms and can be an inconvenient part of college basketball, but Capel has learned to live with it. He acknowledges there are times when previously committed players decide they want something else.

“They don’t think it works for them. It doesn’t fit. Maybe at times they think they’re too good for it. They think they are a little bit above it,” he said.

“I never really try to figure out why a kid left. If they don’t want to be here, ‘Then, go where you want to be.’ I love every one of them. If it’s not here, fine, we’ll get people who want to be here.”