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Pitt set to make Duke assistant Jeff Capel head coach

By Brad Berreman

SOUTH BEND, IN - JANUARY 30: Acting head coach Jeff Capel III of the Duke Blue Devils is seen during the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Purcell Pavilion on January 30, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, IN - JANUARY 30: Acting head coach Jeff Capel III of the Duke Blue Devils is seen during the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Purcell Pavilion on January 30, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) /
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Pitt has finally found their replacement for Kevin Stallings, with a deal in place to hire Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Pitt fired coach Kevin Stallings, after a winless campaign in the ACC made it inevitable. They were spurned by Dan Hurley in favor of UConn, despite reports of a better financial offer, but a fairly quick pivot has come. According to Evan Daniels of 247 Sports and FS1, a deal has been reached for Pitt to hire Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel.

Capel has been associate head coach at Duke since 2011, and he was easy to see a candidate to eventually succeed Mike Krzyzewski. Capel also played for Coach K at Duke, before starting his coaching career as an assistant at Old Dominion in 2000.

This will be Capel’s third shot at being a head coach. He had a 79-41 record over four seasons (2002-2006) at VCU, before going to Oklahoma for five seasons (2006-2011) with an official 83-69 record after 13 wins from the 2009-10 season were vacated due to using an ineligible player.

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Capel is given credit for Duke’s recent successful recruiting of “one and done” players, after Krzyzewski lamented the movement and dismissed the idea of having players like that at the school. Capel will need that strong recruiting acumen at Pitt, who has struggled to bring in highly regarded prospects since leaving the Big East and a lot of players intend to leave the program now.

It’s dangerous to hire an assistant coach who has been associated with success, without clarity about their role in, or influence on, that success. But Capel has been a successful head coach, with at least 18 wins in six of his first seven seasons (overlapping VCU and Oklahoma) and a .614 overall winning percentage if you give back the vacated wins from 2009-10.