Jeff Capel admits the past week has not been easy.

He spent the better part of his first three years as Pitt’s coach recruiting, mentoring, counseling, prodding and developing Xavier Johnson and Au’Diese Toney, helping to turn them into good men and better players than they were the day he met them.

He reveled in their successes. He railed against some of their failures.

Then, as they approach the final two weeks of their third season, they’re gone to the NCAA transfer portal by mutual agreement between players and coach.

“It’s tough,” Capel said Friday during a video conference call with reporters. “Sometimes, when situations like this happen, it can be a gut punch, but you have to move on.

“That’s the bottom line. You have to move onto the next thing, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot can relate to what Capel and many of his colleagues around the country are facing. He lost starters Sincere Carry and Lamar Norman Jr. to the portal earlier this season.

“Nobody is exempt from this transfer craziness,” Dambrot said. “I don’t want to lose guys, but it’s inevitable.”

NCAA statistics say about 40% of all men’s basketball players who enter Division I directly out of high school depart their initial school by the end of their sophomore year.

Now that the NCAA is not forcing players to sit out a season when they change schools, transferring is becoming almost as easy as dropping a class.

“It’s good for players, and it’s bad for players,” Dambrot said. “It’s good because if they’re in a situation where they’re not playing or they’re not happy, then they should be able to go somewhere else.

“But it’s bad for players because sometimes it gives them an out if things don’t go well. So they don’t fight. They don’t handle adversity. They just quit.”

Capel declined to discuss reasons for Johnson and Toney leaving, other than to remark that they were not being disciplined. He said his conversations this week involved the players and their family members.

“It was a lot of talk and discussion. Those things will remain private, at least from our side,” he said. “Everyone felt like it was in the best interest of everyone, our program, for those guys individually, for them to move on.”

He said the reasons for separation “could be” tied to Pitt’s latest losing streak (seven losses in the past eight games). But he was quick to add, “Not one or two people are to blame. We’re all to be held accountable for that.”

Capel said this season is no more difficult than any of his previous 11 as a head coach.

“All of them are trying,” he said, noting his worst fear as a coach was realized in 2011 when he was fired at Oklahoma two years after leading the Sooners to 30 victories and a berth in the NCAA Elite Eight.

“I’ve had bad articles written about me. I’ve had people say I don’t know what I’m doing.”

While both coaches do a good job of blocking out outside noise, other factors are at play. Both believe their profession is changing.

“It’s way different,” Capel said when asked to compare coaching today to when he was a Duke captain in 1996 and 1997. “It’s different than it was five years ago, six years ago. It’s constantly changing ,and you have to be able to adapt.

“Back when I was in school, guys weren’t leaving early as much. I’m sure there were not as many transfers back then as there are now.”

Dambrot said coaches must be careful not to push too hard.

“The hard part is the difference between coaching them and being afraid to coach them,” he said. “If I was a young coach, sometimes I would be afraid to coach them. I’m not (now) because if they quit, they quit.

“I’m going to be nice to them and manage them and talk to them, try to make them understand the importance of handling adversity and fighting for what they want. I’m going to tell them when they’re wrong. I’m going to treat them like my own son and daughter.

“When you’re 35 as a head coach and you have to work another 25 years, that’s hard. If you keep losing good players, eventually they’re hard to replace. They don’t grow on trees.

“Times are changing. It’s hard to be a coach now.”

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