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CHAPEL HILL – Former Tar Heel wing Jason Capel felt disrespected Wednesday night, and he let anyone in his vicinity know it following Pittsburgh’s 65-64 victory over North Carolina at the Smith Center.
Capel, who worked for his older brother as an assistant with the Panthers, felt slighted by UNC’s game-advance graphic it tweeted earlier in the day. The image featured is of Tar Heels walk-on guard Creighton Lebo, who wears number 25, as did Capel when he played for the Heels from 1998-2002.
A source associated with UNC said after the game the tweet is what had Capel upset, leading to him yelling at some fans before heading into the tunnel to the locker room. But it didn’t end there.
Capel stood outside Pitt’s locker room ranting and yelling about being disrespected, also saying “Pittsburgh tough” won the game. Some Pitt players also yelled about “Pittsburgh tough.” A writer who covers Pitt was standing mere feet from Capel in the hallway and tweeted verbatim what the former Carolina captain said:
“Y’all gonna disrespect me? All I did for this program? Y’all gonna boo me? I held this shit together when Matt Doherty tore it apart. F**k that shit.”
Some media that covers UNC witnessed it, too, including both THI reporters on hand. At one point, Capel turned toward about 10 members of the media watching, and yelled to them, “You have your story” now.
Afterward, his brother Jeff, who played at Duke in the 1990s, spoke up for Jason.
“My brother loves this school," he said after the game. “He dreamt of coming here as a player when he was little, we grew up here, my family moved to Virginia (when I think) my brother was going into ninth grade. 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’s been a lot of disrespect towards him. One thing happened today, and I don’t think it’s coming from within the basketball program, and I don’t know who controls their social media. But there was a tweet and I was hoping he didn’t see it. I’m not on social media. One of the guys on my staff showed it to me.”
Capel also said some bad blood still remains stemming from an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight game seven years after Jason Capel’s Carolina career ended.
“He loves (UNC), but I think at times he doesn’t feel that back," the older Capel said. "It started, to be honest with you, in 2009. We played North Carolina when I was at Oklahoma to go to the Final Four. My brother was there with my whole family, supporting me, he had an OU shirt on.
“And the Carolina fans were pretty shitty to him, excuse my language. Pretty nasty, and it took one of the former players to say something.”
The source associated with UNC said each player on the 18-man roster gets featured at least once a season on the pre-game hype tweets, and the person responsible for it, had no ill intent toward Capel.
“He didn’t even know what number Jason wore,” the source said.
Jason Capel started 114 of the 120 games he played at UNC, which included a run to the Final Four in 2000. He was a senior on the 2002 team that set a school record with 20 losses, as UNC went 8-20 that season. Capel averaged 15.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game that year, and for his career scored 1,447 points, grabbed 807 rebounds, and converted 164 three-pointers.
