The University of Pittsburgh will name Duke’s Jeff Capel as their new Mens’ basketball coach at a 12:00 p.m. press conference on Wednesday.

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For a job that had been looked at as career suicide from many candidates, this is a big hire for Pitt in luring Capel from Duke. Acquiring a long-time assistant from Duke, it’s a hire that should excite the fan base a bit.

Capel a former Duke star, has spent seven seasons on Duke’s staff and four as an associate head coach. Capel owns a 175-110 record as a head coach at VCU and Oklahoma with three NCAA Tournament appearances, taking OU to the Elite Eight in 2008.

During the 2016-17 season, he served as acting head coach for seven games following head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s back surgery.

Capel is regarded as a dynamite recruiter but whether he can find a way to recruit at Pitt, remains to be seen.

The struggle to recruit had been seen as the biggest determent for Pitt officials during the search when it came to big names they targeted early in the process like Thad Matta, Tom Crean, and Dan Hurley.

Capel, though, obviously believes he can.

While top donors at the forefront of the search pushed strongly for Pitt to go all out and take the risk associated by getting Sean Miller out of Arizona no matter the cost, something Heather Lyke was strongly against, this hire is said to be very well received.

Capel received a significant commitment from Pitt in getting a 7 year deal.

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Final Take: For a coaching search that even Pitt officials weren’t sure where it was headed, Heather Lyke and her staff did very well in adjusting on the go from Plan-A to Plan-B and such.

The primary focus early in the process was seeing if they could lure a high pedigree head coach to Pitt and when that became bright and clear it wasn’t going to happen, the final conclusion of the search shows there wasn’t a panic in making a get anybody hiring like Mark Schmidt would have been.

This was about as good as you could do in landing a top level assistant like Capel from a major program in Duke. With Lyke not willing to entertain Sean Miller despite immense pressure from people financially who matter more than just about anyone at the university, the search in the last week is said to have focused on Capel and Buffalo’s Nate Oats who was a favorite among many, but Oats took himself out of the mix late last week a source says.

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