I was one of the naysayers of Pitt basketball this season.
I am the first to admit that I voted the Panthers to finish 14th in the ACC, which is where the consensus rested following the polling of the rest of the ACC media day contingency back in October.
Here is a small recap of my vote:
FWIW, here is how I voted: pic.twitter.com/EIakjNd07O
— Corey Crisan (@cdcrisan) October 18, 2022
The Pitt players are well aware of this, by now, and in case you were wondering if that decision made by myself and others included in that poll is adding fuel to what the first-place Panthers are accomplishing this season ...
"We wanted to make noise in the ACC," Greg Elliott said Thursday at the Petersen Events Center. "We knew when it came out that we were going to be 14th, that's why -- when you talk about the media -- we don't really think about being ranked, honestly. Only thing we really think about is the people that ranked us 14th in this league. Every day, that's the only thing that's on our brain. We use that as a chip. The number 14 is crazy when you really sit and think about it. That's how we think about it. We don't really think about it as being ranked, but when we were picked 14th, we had to get it."
... it is.
Just as Jeff Capel said he felt Pitt's win over Northwestern earlier this season was a turning point for Pitt, so did Elliott, as he said "it all clicked for us" at that point. The Panthers had just left Brooklyn following a bad loss to Michigan, which followed an arguably worse loss against West Virginia inside the Petersen Events Center.
Consider those, officially, as Pitt's rallying points.
"We knew that everybody on the outside was going to have their own opinion on what they saw after that 1-3 start," Elliott said. "At the end of the day we knew what our end goal was. We knew, being older guys, we had to stick together no matter what. I feel like it all came with our connectivity. Us being connected was the start, and once we got connected I feel like there was nobody that could really stop that or break that. Once we got that and got rolling, it was no stopping us.
"... We don't really think about (the rankings). We just go out there and just keep playing our game and being good with the result."
Pitt remains unranked in the Associated Press Top 25, but that could change with a win at Virginia Tech Saturday. The Panthers officially cracked the top 50 within the NCAA NET Rankings with their blowout of Boston College Tuesday.
Remember -- the ACC is perceived to be in a "down" year, which while coupled with Pitt's track record prior to the start of this season could serve as a mild explanation as to why the Panthers remain unranked despite being tied for first place in the ACC.
"I definitely think that it's unfair and it's not true what people say about our league or what's been said about our league," Capel said. "I think our league is really good. Other leagues are really good -- some of them only have 10 teams, where we have 15. But when you look at it we have a team that's in the top 10 in the country. We have two other teams that are in the top 25. We have a team that was preseason ranked No. 1 and spent time at No. 1. We have another team that was at one point in the top 5. We have another team in Virginia Tech that at one point was a top 20 team. I think there's depth in our league. I think there are really good players, I think there are really good coaches.
"(Regarding perception,) I'm not sure why. I don't understand the metrics. I don't pretend to understand how they equate and how they come up with all these numbers. I know that when we went head-to-head there's a challenge that we had against a really, really good league. If my math is correct, we came out on top. The ACC came out out on top. I don't really understand why. Perhaps some of it is that the two programs in our league nationally known, you know, aren't in the top 25 right now. So, maybe there's a little bit of that. All I know is that every team in this league is really good, and we're getting ready to play one on Saturday."
MORE FROM OAKLAND
• You can look beyond Capel and his players when diagnosing the makeup which has led the turnaround of this Pitt program.
Tim O'Toole, Jason Capel, and the six other members of the coaching staff and numerous support staff members play just as much of a part as the man at the top.
O'Toole has a reputation which precedes itself when it comes to developing a frontcourt, and Jason Capel has his fingerprints all over the Panthers' guards room. But their primary roles do not just limit to aiding in development of players; there is a connection to Jeff Capel within the flow of any given game which lends a plethora of experience and influence into how the Panthers traverse 40 minutes of basketball.
"I'd say (that happens) a lot, and I think they're really good, all of the coaches on our staff" Jeff Capel said. "I trust their input. They may see things that I don't see, depending on whose scout it is, they've probably watched more tape than me, and I've watched a lot. Our video guy watches more than all of us, and so they have different insights, they have different things that they see. I may not agree with them all, I may not do them all, but I want to hear them. I'm a guy, I like to think out loud, I like to hear things because it may be something that triggers something that I didn't see in this game, I didn't see this team do this to them, and it may be something that triggers.
"During the game I'm always turned saying stuff. I'm just saying it out loud, and I'm talking to all of them. Sometimes they don't all listen to me, but I'm talking to all of them, and I want input from all of them."
O'Toole has 30 years of coaching under his belt and reached the 2013 Final Four as a member of Jim Boeheim's staff at Syracuse. He coached Jeff Capel as an assistant under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke while helping the Blue Devils to the 1997 ACC championship.
Jason Capel, of course, is the younger brother of Jeff, and he has a decade of coaching experience following his playing days at North Carolina. In April of 2010 he became the youngest head coach in the NCAA when he was hired to take over Appalachian State's program.
Associate coach Milan Brown has also been here throughout Jeff Capel's tenure, and he has been the biggest influence over the backcourt to date. Brown has 25 years of coaching experience in total, with 12 spent as a head coach.
All of that experience does factor into adjustments mid-game, but at the end of the day, Jeff Capel has the final say. Just as any head coach will have, the support staff for Jeff Capel oftentimes sees things which Jeff cannot in-game. There are many factors to be concerned over within the game, and there is input which Jeff will seek guidance from his assistants.
"Sometimes I may say, 'I don't want to do that,' or 'I don't think that would be good for us,' and then we go on," Jeff Capel said. "As the head coach you are the ultimate decision-maker. Everything falls on you. When you're an assistant you can have a lot of suggestions, but as the head coach I have to be the one that makes the final decision. There is back-and-forth. Not as much as the game is going on -- in a timeout, dead-ball situation, and things like that. But a lot before games where we meet, we go over scouting, we talk, and so it's very collaborative."
• I joined Jim Quist and Will Ojanen on the "ACC Nation" Podcast to give thoughts on Pitt's run this season. You can listen to that below.