The pain, the empty feeling, the anger won’t go away, and that’s OK, according to Pitt guards Jaland Lowe and Ishmael Leggett. They thrive on it, actually.
“Fuel to the fire,” Leggett said Thursday afternoon on the ACC Network during an appearance at the ACC Tip-off Event in Charlotte, N.C.
The fuel is the way Pitt was left out seven months ago by the NCAA Tournament committee and how the Panthers plan to use it as motivation this season.
“Mindset-wise, we left last season with a bad taste in our mouth,” Lowe said. “We thought we were very deserving. That motivated us.”
How can the team make sure it won’t be ignored this season?
Win more games and, according to the new fighting words players have chosen: “Leave no doubt.”
“Every day we say it,” Lowe said.
Redemption starts with the nonconference schedule coach Jeff Capel hopes will launch his team toward a season the committee won’t overlook.
It includes five games against power conference schools: West Virginia, LSU, Ohio State, Mississippi State and either Wisconsin or UCF at the second day of the Greenbrier Tip-Off Tournament on Nov. 24. Last season, Pitt played only four such teams — West Virginia, Florida, Oregon State and Missouri — and losing seasons by Missouri and WVU didn’t help Pitt’s cause.
Capel spoke candidly about the situation Thursday on the ACC Network.
“By the time we get to conference play, especially in January, normally your resume is kind of set,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that no matter what happens after that, the narrative about you has been explained. We have to do a better job of that.”
The recent outside perception by others about the ACC is the league has dropped a few notches in terms of national recognition and respect. Capel and his ACC coaching brethren take every opportunity to dispel that notion.
“My first four years we helped bring the league down because we didn’t do well,” Capel said. “The past two years, we’ve done pretty good. We have to do a better job of that.”
Capel, Lowe and Leggett talked Thursday about “the chip on our shoulder” the team will carry.
“We talk about we want to be the toughest team, mentally, physically and physically being conditioning wise,” Capel said. “We want to try to play harder than anyone else.”
Capel said he likes his team, even though it lost leading scorers Bub Carrington and Blake Hinson.
But five players — Lowe, Leggett, Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham and Zack Austin — return, and that’s something Capel does not take for granted in this transfer age. Plus, transfers Cam Corhen and Damian Dunn, freshmen Amsal Delalic and Brandin Cummings and 6-foot-10, 235-pound redshirt freshman Papa Kante’s recovery from a knee injury offer hope.
Capel said Kante’s season-long injury was “a big loss for us last year because he would have been our most physical post player.”
It all gets tied up, according to Capel, by a feeling of “gratefulness” among his players.
“We have a group of guys who are grateful to be at Pitt,” he said. “I think that’s very different from when I took over in the first couple of years. We had some guys who, I think, they felt like they were doing us a favor by being there. There’s a big difference in those two things.
“That’s something as a head coach I’m going to fight like heck to protect in our program, getting the guys who are grateful to be there, to be in the city, to be in the university and being a part of our program.
“I think we have a chance to be good. I’m watching to see how we’re going to react when we get punched in the mouth. Because that’s when find out who you really are.”
Capel’s father, Felton J. Capel II, was a basketball coach who taught his sons an important lesson, Jeff Capel said: “Don’t make excuses. Figure it out.”
“I’m anxious to watch us figure it out.”
Jerry DiPaola is a TribLive reporter covering Pitt athletics since 2011. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in 1993, first as a copy editor and page designer in the sports department and later as the Pittsburgh Steelers reporter from 1994-2004. He can be reached at jdipaola@triblive.com.
