I was away with my son on his first Boy Scout camping trip this past weekend. End of April, you figure at worst a little damp. Did it rain the first night and all morning? You bet. Did the temperature start plummeting after the rains stopped so that it was mid-30s by the evening and right around 30 by the morning. Of course. How the boy or I aren’t sick (yet), is a mystery. On the plus side, the new cot I got saved my back so I’m not trying to type while hanging from an inversion table.

Being away meant not watching the draft, but more importantly not being able to comment on yet another new commit for the men’s basketball team.

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It’s almost as if Pitt AD Heather Lyke tried to take the first year a little slow, publicly. Feel things out. Line up some things. And now… just unleash a firestorm of change.

Obviously there are the numerous coaching changes that have occurred. Hey, an accolade for wrestling.

Today she had a meeting with reporters and there were some really good things.

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Sorry. One of those weeks where I am everywhere but home.

As much as I wasn’t enamored with Marcus Carr as a true point guard by the end of the year, the fact was he was the only option. And he was just a freshman. And, given the upheaval, he was someone Pitt and Jeff Capel wanted to keep.

But from the moment he got his release, major conference teams came calling. Him not coming back was unsurprising. Just annoying at how long he took to make that decision.

Thankfully, the annoyance was short-lived.

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Pitt has hired it’s new Women’s Basketball Coach.

University of Pittsburgh Director of Athletics Heather Lyke announced Wednesday afternoon the hiring of Lance White as head women’s basketball coach.

“When I first met Coach White, his genuine personality, energy and excitement about being at Pitt was evident and contagious,” Lyke said. “He has a tremendous pedigree in coaching and has been an instrumental part of several successful women’s basketball programs that have sustained success at the highest levels. I am confident he is more than prepared to build a program that brings great pride to our University.  We are thrilled to welcome Lance and his wife, Melanie, and their children to Pittsburgh and the Pitt family.”

White comes to Pitt after spending the past 15 years at Florida State, where he helped the Seminoles to a 350-145 (.707) record, including 12 seasons with 20 wins or more. Since White’s arrival at FSU, 10 players were selected in the WNBA Draft, eight Seminoles earned ACC All-Defensive team honors and 37 earned all-conference awards. He helped Florida State reach the NCAA Tournament in 13 of the past 14 years, while the team won at least one NCAA Tournament game in its past 15 appearances. For his standout coaching efforts during the 2016-17 season, White was named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association National Assistant (WBCA) Coach of the Year.

White was also an assistant coach at Texas Tech before FSU. Texas Tech is also his alma mater.

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Pitt men’s basketball coach, Jeff Capel, completed his staff last night with the hiring of Milan Brown. Brown had been an assistant at College of Charleston. But before that, he had been the head coach at Holy Cross and Mt. Saint Mary’s for a total of 12 years.

All three of his assistant coaches have head coaching experience. Especially the two lead assistants — O’Toole and Brown.

There is a logic to it. As much as the assumption was that Capel would hire a name, stud recruiter, Capel himself is the name, stud recruiter.

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If you wish to be angsty about the offense, go right ahead. There wasn’t much at all. To large degree, though, that is not surprising.

The play calling was always going to be safe and vanilla for this game. Two of the likely starting offensive linemen did not play. One due to minor injury and the other because he isn’t on campus yet.

We expected the defense to be ahead of the offense, and by all appearances has better talent. But if you went, were you really there for the football?

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Stunned. Genuinely stunned. Followed by really, really happy. September can’t roll around fast enough.

Some potential college football news dropped by the Pirates just now: Bucs move their Sept. 8 game vs. Marlins from 7:05 to 1:05 ET "to allow the University of Pittsburgh to schedule its gridiron clash with Penn State University at night."

— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) April 13, 2018

Two years ago, you may recall the Pittsburgh Pirates refused to even entertain the notion of rescheduling their home game for earlier to allow for an evening game.

Does it help that the Pirates are still trying to generate some positive publicity after an offseason of giving away their best players, going cheap and pleading poverty… again? Probably. Do I care? No.

I’m not sure how AD Heather Lyke did it, I just like it.

In the past 5 years or so, the spring game in college football has become a pissing match to see which program gets the biggest fan support for a glorified scrimmage. Attendance is taken. Memes are made to mock schools that don’t get their stadiums packed.

What was once a nice little thing for the die-hard fans and to try and build some enthusiasm has become its own thing. So much so, that programs don’t want to be embarrassed by poor turnouts.

The weather has been slow to become pleasant this “spring.” And nothing kills attendance for these things like bad weather. All you have to do is flash back to the Blue-Gold game in Fraud’s first year — it still haunts me — and with that horrid weather the stands were barren.

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After waiting for something, anything regarding Jeff Capel’s coaching staff; two assistants named at last. Jason Capel and Tim O’Toole.

O’Toole joins Pitt after spending the last two seasons as an associate head coach at University of California, Berkeley. He has also worked as an assistant coach at eight different programs over the last 30 years. Before California, O’Toole was an assistant at Stanford from 2014 to 2016 and spent the 2013-14 season in the same position at Syracuse under Jim Boeheim.

In his only head coaching stint at Fairfield from 1998 to 2006, O’Toole amassed a 112-120 record and made one appearance in the NIT tournament in 2003.

Capel’s brother, Jason, first came to prominence during his college career playing at North Carolina. In his time at Chapel Hill, Capel averaged at least nine points per game in each of his four seasons. He starred for the Tar Heels in his senior season averaging 15.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game.

After spending time playing professionally overseas, Capel spent time as an assistant coach at Appalachian State during the 2009-2010 season, then as head coach of the program from 2010-2014. He hasn’t held a coaching position since Appalachian State decided not to renew his contract in 2014.

I’m sure the hiring of his younger brother will raise some eyebrows.

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Apparently North Carolina jumped the gun on the ACC Men’s Basketball schedule. Not the exact dates yet, but the home and aways, and cross-overs.

Pitt has its two annual home-and-homes of Syracuse and Louisville. This year the other two are Clemson and NC State.

The schedule with home-and-aways, dare I say is actually rather good for Pitt. Among the top half of teams in the ACC, Duke, UNC, FSU and ND all have to play at the Pete. The only truly tough ACC road games are Virginia and Miami.

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The page listing Pitt Men’s Basketball Coaching Staff is still rather sparse. Former player, Chris Jones, is still listed as a Graduate Assistant. Jason Richards remains as Director of Basketball Operations. Garry Christopher remains as the Strength and Conditioning Coach. And that is it.

We know Pitt took it’s time before hiring Jeff Capel as head coach, but that doesn’t mean the hiring of assistants has to remain up in the air this long.

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One of the more baffling side-stories in the “Pitt Coaching Search 2018 — Men’s Basketball Edition,” was the purported interest from Sean Miller. The former Pitt great, local kid and present Arizona basketball coach.

Two years ago, Sean Miller openly rejected all overtures from Pitt. And there was little reason to think that anything had changed. Well, aside from the whole FBI investigation that led to the indictment of his long-time friend and assistant coach at Arizona and Xavier.

So, many questions as why Miller would suddenly be interested in Pitt. Especially now, when Pitt basketball was arguably in a worse spot then two years ago.

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What was it? A couple weeks ago, when there were questions about AD Lyke and Chancellor Gallagher, regarding their commitment to Pitt Athletics. Simpler times.

University of Pittsburgh Director of Athletics Heather Lyke announced today that Suzie McConnell-Serio will not return as the Panthers’ head women’s basketball coach.

McConnell-Serio recently completed her fifth season with the Panthers, compiling a 67-87 overall record and 22-58 ACC mark during that span.

McConnell-Serio was a surprising disaster as the women’s basketball coach. In that respect her firing wasn’t a shock.

But on the heels of getting rid of Kevin Stallings to reboot the men’s basketball program, the impetuous to make a change on the women’s side, would have seemed to have been put aside for the time being. To say nothing of making additional outlays in the budget for the buyout and hiring a new coach.

Apparently the money and the desire to make a change are there.

Lots of changes in the coaches within Pitt Athletics in the last few years. All the attention is on football and men’s basketball, but in the last two years Pitt has hired a new women’s gymnastics coach, men’s and women’s soccer and wrestling. And for the most part the new coaches have made noticeable progress very quickly.

I realize Pitt fans are conditioned to expect the AD to be a bumbling mess. And at the first sign of a problem default to that expectation. But maybe, just maybe, Heather Lyke actually knows what she is doing.

The NCAA Tournament is over. Easter is done. Family has been visited. Taxes are filed. Passover is well underway — and as an aside without all the carb snacks, beer and bourbon for the week, I’ve lost 4 pounds.

Jeff Capel’s hiring as the men’s basketball coach at Pitt has been received by the fans, all the local media and national media as an excellent hire. Just going to link and write on some of the stuff related to Capel.

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