Pitt won its third straight game Wednesday night, beating the North Carolina Tar Heels for the third straight time in the Dean Dome. Jamarius Burton sank a pair of free throws with 3.4 seconds left to give the Panthers the lead for the final time, and Nike Sibande got a hand on Caleb Love’s last effort shot attempt with 0.6 seconds left to seal the victory.
But folks might quickly forget how Pitt won this game or how Carolina lost it because what happened after the game sort of overshadowed everything.
When we look back on this game, we might refer to it as, “The Jason Capel Game.”
After Pitt won, its players piled into the hallway outside of the visitors’ locker room (which is right next to the media workroom at the Smith Center), hooting and hollering in celebration. When they settled down, the coaches came around the corner, and Pitt assistant coach Jason Capel was yelling. And not in a celebratory manner.
“Y’all gonna disrespect me?” Capel shouted. “All I did for this program? Y’all gonna boo me? I held this [expletive] together when Matt Doherty tore it apart. [Expletive] that [expletive].”
Jason Capel played at UNC from 1998 through 2002. He was a starter on a Final Four team in 2000, but he was also a senior captain on one of the worst teams in UNC history – the one coached by Matt Doherty that went 8-20 in the 2001-02 campaign. Some UNC fans still feel a certain type of way about that era of Carolina basketball, apparently.
And tensions between Capel and his alma mater have been tense for a while.
After the game, Capel told the Raleigh News & Observer in a text message, “Shouldn’t be a story. I shouldn’t be a story. Pitt winning should be the story.”
But it’s a little too late for that.
Here’s what we know about the beef between Jason Capel and UNC.
According to Jeff Capel, this goes back to 2009
Jason’s older brother Jeff (a Duke graduate) is the head coach of the Pitt Panthers. He was asked about his brother’s outburst after the game and defended him, calling Jason’s relationship with his alma mater “complicated.”
“My brother loves this school, he dreamt of coming here as a player when we were little,” Jeff Capel said. “This is the place that he always dreamt of playing. He wore that jersey with a lot of pride, and since he’s left here there has been a lot of disrespect towards him.”
Jeff Capel seems to think the bad blood between his brother and UNC started at the 2009 Elite Eight. Back then, Jeff was coaching Oklahoma and the Sooners were playing against Carolina for the chance to go to the Final Four. Jason showed up to the game wearing an Oklahoma shirt to support his brother and – according to Jeff – was harassed by UNC fans. A former UNC player stepped in to cool the situation, Jeff said.
“The Carolina fans were pretty [expletive] toward him, excuse my language,“ Jeff Capel said. “But pretty, pretty nasty. And it took one of the former players to say something.”
Jeff Capel on Jason Capel, UNC:@PghSportsNow pic.twitter.com/VGX1ZpoBjp
— Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) February 2, 2023
Jason Capel was fired up last year too.
As previously mentioned, this is the third straight time Pitt has won in Chapel Hill. And after last year’s game – a 76-67 win for Pitt on Feb. 16, 2022 – Jason Capel took some time to talk a little trash as Pitt was leaving the court.
“Like we said! Make it a dawg fight! They cute over here now, Daht! They cute over here now! Just make it a dog fight. They don’t want that!”
– Jason Capel screaming at me as he leaves the court, Victorious. #GoHeels
— IG: BDahtTV (@BDAHT) February 17, 2022
And according to a handful of UNC fans, Capel also called the Tar Heels “soft” last season.
Jason Capel’s outburst started on the court.
Before Jason Capel began yelling outside of the visitors’ locker room Wednesday night, he was jawing with some UNC fans on the court, according to Sports Illustrated. And then, per S.I., Capel got into a shouting match with UNC senior associate athletic director for media relations Steve Kirschner.
Kirschner was working for UNC as a sports information staffer when Capel was a player.
Steve Kirschner and Jason Capel had some words for each other as the made their ways off the court.
— Max Gongaware (@maxgongaware) February 2, 2023
Members of the Pitt coaching staff got into a verbal argument with #UNC fans on the way off the court. Jason Capel just yelled “All I did for this program and you’re going to boo me.”
— Jordan Crammer (@JordanCrammer) February 2, 2023
Jason told the Raleigh News & Observer that he was going to talk to legendary UNC player Phil Ford when fans started yelling at him.
“I’ll be better. But yelling [expletive] YOU repeatedly to a grown man, multiple (people), when all I was doing was speaking to MY COACH – Phil Ford, ain’t cool. Repeatedly. To all of us,” Capel told the N&O.
All this was over… a tweet?
According to Jeff Capel, what really riled up his brother was a tweet from North Carolina’s official men’s basketball Twitter account. It shows walk-on Creighton Lebo – yes, the son of Jeff Lebo – wearing the No. 25 (the number Jason Capel wore) and sticking his tongue out. For what it’s worth, Lebo has played in one game this season.
Source familiar with the situation says that, yes, this is the Tweet that fired up the Capels, apparently.https://t.co/le9DUQUmUQ
— Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) February 2, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“I don’t think it’s coming from within the basketball program. I don’t know who controls their social media… I was hoping he didn’t see it… I thought it was them trolling him,” Jeff Capel said. “For me, it’s just really interesting man, because I grew up in the state, and this is one of the most tradition-laden programs in the history of college athletics. Not just college basketball. You hear about the Carolina family, and it’s just amazing to me that their social media people would do that.”
According to Inside Carolina, the UNC social media staffer didn’t know that Capel wore No. 25 and “there was no intention involved.”
