He was the one who got VCU right from being an after thought to the string of coaches to make the NCAA tournament.
He would be in my 3rd tier choice.
First tier is Byington/Calhoun (biggest ceiling imo)
Second tier is Shaka/Cronin (yuck)/Odom
Third tier would be Capel, Moser, Hoiberg (coaches who might be better than their situations let them be/under resourced).
Fourth tier: Furman coach and the NBA guys (skeptical of translation to college game)
Not just that. The eye test. His teams donāt appear super well coached given the talent they have. They donāt get great looks. He doesnāt run interesting stuff that maximizes his talent. Heās done well identifying talent, but beyond that, not impressed.
Itās a Dave-Leitao-ass-hire ā¢.
He is coaching with mostly 3 stars and average transfers so they are being coached up a little.
I think thatās talent identification rather than coaching. Bub Carrington didnāt blow up because he was at Pitt for 9 months. He was undervalued during recruiting.
Yeah and Jaland Lowe could be seen as a 3 star but man I was really impressed as he lead his aau team to I think the peach jam finals (they blew out Gertrudeās team) and not a total surprise he ended up good
This ties back into a point thatās been made here.
Tony watched both Jaland Lowe and Silas Demary extensively and passed on them. And then a few months later we took Dante Harris to fill the void who Im assuming Tony only saw in person once when we scrimmaged Georgetown and beat them by 100 with Ralph Sampson showing the score in his photo. And whose stats in real time screamed horrific fit for us.
Given I think both will be available to us, who would you rather have?
This was over 20 years agoā¦ Iām not sure how many of those skills are transferrable.
The shocking part with him is that he is still younger than Ryan Odom! Which does soften me on him a bit.
My issue is that I donāt think heās a very good in-game coach, and the former bag man archetype of coach isnāt one Iām very interested in in the new era of college sports. That skill is obsolete now.
Stick a fork in my UVA menās basketball fanhood if Capel gets the nod.
Capel has saved himself the last few years and has adopted well to the new NIL landscape. I think he would probably have us in the bubble out to maybe 9/10 seed range most years. Never elite.
I think I would rather try a top tier mid major coach then a retread.
Before 2022 I would have never said this, but in an NIL, transfer portal world, I wouldnāt absolutely hate Capel. Not my first choice but I could see the appeal.
Itās not about development or program building anymore. We need someone who can navigate this landscape.
Ending up with either of them would hopefully mean we missed on our top 5 choices.
Gun to my head? Give me Odom. Neither would last 5 years here tho.
My take on Capel is that if heās interested in the job (which seems pretty obvious given all the noise) there should be other coaches higher on the list interested as well. Capel would probably have solid options if he was truly on the market. Like I could see both Villanova and Indiana being interested.
Ultimately, I just canāt see us hiring him, even if we could ever get comfortable with him being a good option.
I think there would be a riot in Bloomington if they hired Jeff Capel.
He probably makes more sense at Nova than Indiana. Woodson has actually recruited pretty well (if you ignore guards, which Woodson does)
I was about to say a combination of Capel and Woodson would be interesting. Capelās overperforming guards with Woodsonās dominant big men.
Iām starting to get pretty nervous we could be competing with UNC in the coaching searchā¦ Donāt want to have to go head to head with them for guys.
Yeah, same. Like the joke goes āThe last person I want as our coach is Capel, but he is on the listā. I donāt hate the ideal of Capel being our head coach, as long as our first 7 or whatever choices didnāt work out for various reasons.
Heās bizarro-Byington. āNo one is a point guard, because point guards donāt exist.ā He went out and got Myles Rice on his team and then decided nah, Trey Galloway should have the ball in hands more often.
After that game, I got into a back and forth with Mikeysurf on the Sabre. He had been very cool on TB when he was hired, crediting Dick Bennett for Tonyās WSU success. I was very excited about him. However, by the Tennessee loss, I had just about had enough. I will give Mikey credit, he was very confident that TB was still going to turn things around.
