Tulsa World: Game is Capel's focus

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Game is Capel's focus
Sooners coach downplays the homecoming angle

Jeff Capel's career as a head coach began at Virginia Commonwealth, which hosts OU on Saturday. STEPHEN PINGRY / Tulsa World file

By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer
Published: 11/21/2009 2:26 AM
Last Modified: 11/21/2009 9:45 AM

NORMAN — Seven years ago, Virginia Commonwealth athletic director Richard Sander dropped by a study hall and changed the course of two basketball programs.

Jeff Capel, then a 27-year-old in his first season as a VCU assistant, was monitoring the study session when Sander, as he remembers, "asked me if I had a second. He asked if I could come down to his office. I went down and he talked about what he wanted to do, what his thoughts were."

His thoughts were to make Capel the youngest college basketball coach in America, and that's exactly what happened. Capel took over the Rams. In his second year, they won the Colonial Athletic Association championship and came within a point of upsetting Chris Paul and Wake Forest in the NCAA Tournament.

Four years into his VCU stint, Capel attracted the attention of another athletic director in the market for a basketball coach. This time, Joe Castiglione tapped Capel to replace Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma.

Three seasons with OU have brought Capel two more NCAA Tournaments, an Elite Eight appearance and the consensus national player of the year/No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. The Sooners are 2-0 this year as they await their first road test, which isn't much of a road game at all for their head coach.

OU plays at VCU tonight at 6:30 p.m.

"It's a huge game," said Sooners guard Willie Warren. "It's like me going home to play against Texas. Being from there, I'm always up for that game. Coach starting his career there, I'm sure he's pumped for this game."

Maybe. But he's doing a good job of keeping those emotions internal.

"I'm excited about it. I'm excited about how our team handles a hostile road environment," Capel said, taking a practical approach that sounds more like OU football coach Bob Stoops. "I know how that place (VCU's Siegel Center) is when it's packed, and it will be packed. I know how it is when it's loud in there, and it will be loud. It will help prepare us for when we're at Gonzaga. It will help prepare us for when we're at KU and Oklahoma State, road games in the Big 12."

So Capel wants to succeed for the sake of his young team taking another step toward potential-reaching. He wants to be 3-0.

His players, though, want to succeed so they might make their coach proud in his homecoming.

"Especially me," Warren said. "I have a lot of respect for him. He's done a lot for me. I want to get this win for him more than anything."

It would be a neat story, the Sooners showing the since-retired Sander and VCU president emeritus Eugene Trani that they were ahead of the curve seven years ago.

"It was really important for me to try to prove not only myself, but I didn't want Dr. Sander or Dr. Trani to look bad," Capel recalled. "It took a lot of courage on their part, because they heard a lot, that they were crazy for doing that, things like that."

"He displayed great character, great intelligence and the players looked up to him," Trani told the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week. "We had no second thoughts whatsoever about making Jeff our coach."

Capel is expected to see Trani, Sander, some family members making the trip from North Carolina and a few other old friendly faces tonight. But it won't be any this-is-your-life weekend.

"I'm not going to have time," Capel said.

Besides, he'll be there to coach a basketball game. The competitiveness that helped him buck the trend and succeed as a 27-year-old burns pretty hot today.

"I'm not going there for a homecoming, I'm going there to try to get a win," Capel said recently. "We can do homecoming stuff afterwards — if we win."

Guerin Emig 581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer

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Democrat, Tulsa County (11/21/2009 7:13:17 AM)

Capel and Stoops-- Castiglione has done very well as the A.D.

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