Stability, Family, and Strategy: Jeff Capel’s Trust in the Right People Paying Off

I have visited 15 different college basketball teams in the past three weeks, as part of a preseason venture for The Portal Report. The goal of the trip? Shake hands, meet coaches, and learn the game.

I’ve been to low-major schools, mid-major schools, and high-major schools. Schools with high-school sized gyms, and schools with 100-million-dollar arenas. Schools with non-existent NIL budgets, and schools with players making hundreds of thousands of dollars per season.

After putting nearly 3,000 miles on my car, I think I am starting to form a pretty solid idea of what some of the qualities are that make a solid basketball staff. The first that comes to mind? Stability.

STABILITY | In an era of college basketball in which the rules seem to be changing every single day, stability is one of the most highly sought after qualities a basketball program can have. Not only when it comes to the players on the court year in and year out, but also, the staff members: Stability is a goal for many head coaches on the road to building a winning program.

Stability comes to mind when thinking about the Pitt basketball staff under Jeff Capel. Entering his seventh year at the helm, Capel is going into battle with the same three assistant coaches who were with him at the very start: Tim O’Toole, Milan Brown, and Jason Capel. Brian Regan, the team’s Director of Basketball Operations, has also been there since day one. Matt Plizga, the program’s Sports Information Director, has too.

There is a feeling of true camaraderie around this staff. “Togetherness” is mentioned often in press conferences in the Pete. Also, a sense of professionalism. Each staff member seems to know and accept their role, whether it comes to recruiting, on-court duties, or off-court representation of the program. With consistent excellence in all three of those facets of coaching, this group has taken a program that was among the worst in high-major college basketball back to a respectable level.

“I think, number one, the first four years, I don’t think anyone wanted us, any of us,” Capel laughed when asked how he has been able to keep his assistants around. “But the past couple of years, we have been able to win and do some things. Look, I think all three of those guys, number one, they have been head coaches before. TO at Fairfield, Milan at Mount Saint Mary’s and at Holy Cross, and my brother [Jason] at Appalachian State.”

Head coaching experience is certainly a plus when looking for an assistant coach. For instance, DePaul — the latest school on my trip — has a staff that looks similar to Pitt’s. The Blue Demons hired former Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann this offseason, and Holtmann quickly went out and built a loaded staff, full of experience. Jack Owens (Miami OH), Bryan Mullins (Southern Illinois), and Lavall Jordan (Butler) have all been head coaches at the Division One level, and recently, too. After watching nearly three hours of an intense DePaul practice and film session, it was easy to see how this can pay off.

With top-tier basketball knowledge, well-earned respect from everyone in the gym, and countless leadership qualities, these former head coaches know when to push the right buttons in the practice gym and on the bench during games to strive for team-wide success. This is what it feels like hearing Capel speak about his staff and watching them work together.

“I think they all aspire to be head coaches again, but I just don’t think the right one has presented itself for them,” he said. “I think if the right opportunity came and it fit them and their family and what they were looking for, I do think it’s something they would pursue, and I would do everything I can to help them to achieve that. But they have been unbelievable for me, for our program, and I think it says something about our program and their loyalty that they want to be here. A lot of times, you have assistants, you’re chasing something and you’re not grateful for where you are because you’re looking at the next thing. It’s nothing wrong with that — I get that, I was an assistant once, or twice, myself, and so I understand that. So I think the ones that are really good, they’re locked in and focused on what they’re doing where they are. I think they understand that if they can help the place where they are be successful, it gives them more of an opportunity to be successful individually.”

FAMILY | Earlier In the summer, I spoke with Capel about how he has stuck with his staff through his entire tenure.

“I wanted people I could trust, that was probably the main thing,” he said. “I wanted people that were good men that could be positive role models for the guys that we get to coach. And obviously guys that know basketball. The three that I hired right away, my brother, Milan and Tim, I’ve known them.”

From 1995-97, Brown coached as an assistant under Jeff’s father, Jeff Capel II, at Old Dominion. O’Toole was an assistant coach for Mike Krzyzewski when Capel played for the Blue Devils. Then Jason, obviously, has known Jeff his entire life. With recruiting ties in basketball hotbeds like the DMV, New York, and the Carolinas, the three brought so much to the table, and made perfect sense for Jeff to bring with him to Pittsburgh.

In the years that have followed, all three have stayed consistent in what they do, despite four-straight losing seasons that prompted calls from the public for Capel to shake up his staff, like many ADs and HCs have done when things have gotten rough.

“Look, I heard the noise,” Capel said. “I heard that people were saying we should do this, these guys aren’t good, my brother is this, and stories were manufactured and made up about his relationship, or people didn’t like him, or whatever. For me, I don’t believe the noise. I live it. I’m with it. I’m around it every day. I see it. So, what other people’s opinions are, they don’t really matter to me. I believed that they were the right people to help us, and I saw that we were making small, little progress even in the midst of 11-21 or whatever we were that year… It was about getting the right people.”

The furthest South that I went on my trip was Clinton, South Carolina — home of the Presbyterian College Blue Hose. Presbyterian plays in the Big South, which you may remember is the same conference that current Panther Zack Austin came from via High Point University. On a hot, foggy day in late September, I made it down to Clinton, a small Southern town of 7,500 people. I showed up several days before official practice began for Division One teams around the country, so there was no official practice on the schedule that day for the Blue Hose. Despite the timing, upon my arrival, I found a hungry group of basketball coaches and several players inside the Templeton Physical Education Center bright and early. Two of those coaches happened to be Pitt men.