Jeff Capel's 'family-type' culture helped attract transfers Damian Dunn, Cam Corhen to Pitt

Damian Dunn didn’t transfer to Pitt from Houston, one of the top college basketball schools in the nation, because his hometown of Kinston, N.C., is less than 100 miles from where Jeff Capel grew up in Fayetteville.

He didn’t listen to Capel’s sales pitch because his father, Paul, competed against Pitt’s coach in high school. Dunn said, by the way, his father described Capel as a “baller … a hooper, for sure.”

Those facts didn’t hurt Pitt’s cause in recruiting Dunn, but the chief reason he is on campus planning to man the Panthers’ backcourt this season goes deeper.

“Coach Capel knew how much having a family-type environment around me meant to me,” Dunn said Thursday afternoon after an informal practice with his new teammates at Petersen Events Center. “He played high school basketball against my dad. He knows everything there is to know about me.

“The guys they’ve had the past two years, they dedicated themselves to making the culture known, playing by the standard, living by it off the floor, as well. It was definitely something I wanted to gravitate toward. When I got here, it felt like family. Family, that’s the biggest word I can describe who we are off the floor, brothers. That’s what’s going to make us special.”

During the dog days of summer, the Panthers are practicing against each other and former Pitt players, the latter group a part of the Zoo Crew that will compete in The Basketball Tournament starting Saturday night at The Pete.

Dunn and center Cam Corhen, a 6-foot-10 transfer from Florida State, quickly are learning why Pitt extended Capel’s contract through the next six seasons, a period of time that speaks to the administration’s desire to maintain what’s been happening since 2022.

Capel has found a wealth of talent in the transfer portal, providing new homes for older players such as Blake Hinson, Zack Austin, Ishmael Leggett, Jamarius Burton, Nelly Cummings, Nike Sibande and Greg Elliott. He hopes Dunn, a 23-year-old graduate student, and Corhen, a rising junior, fit that mold.

Dunn, who will be asked to help replace some of the scoring punch Bub Carrington took with him to the NBA, scored 38 points against Vanderbilt in 2022 during a game when his streak of 33 consecutive made free throws ended. He averaged only 6.4 points while appearing in 37 games (four starts) for the talent-laden Houston team. Prior to that, he spent four seasons at Temple, averaging 14.6 points per game.

He was attracted to Pitt because Capel remembered previously trying to recruit him. For Dunn, it was almost like paying back his new coach.

“This time around, I knew I wanted to come here,” Dunn said. “Coach Capel was so willing to come back to me the second time around and show how much he believed in me and trusted in me, even after the first time when I told him I was going to decide to go to another school.”

Corhen, who scored 25 points, with eight rebounds, against Pitt at the Pete in March, said he chose to transfer to the Panthers because Capel said he will give him the opportunity to broaden his game.

“He obviously saw the things I could do, but he was talking about the things I couldn’t do,” Corhen said. “Most coaches want to tell you what you want to hear. That wasn’t him at all. He talked abut all the things he wants to work on with me. I love that about him.

“I want to bring an inside presence that I feel like has been missing for a little while here, high-energy plays. (Capel) said these last two years they’ve been good and on an incline, but he just needs to take another step and he feels like I can be a big part of taking that next step to make a deep March Madness run.

“At first, I was a little skeptical because coaches tell you what you want to hear. But I’m here. I’m with the culture. I see how everything goes. I think we can do it. I feel like we can win the ACC.”

Corhen said he might even expand his 3-point game after hitting only 8 of 32 the past two seasons.

“We shoot so many 3s (in practice this summer), my shoulder hurts as we speak,” he said.

Corhen said it was difficult to leave Florida State and 75-year-old coach Leonard Hamilton.

“He was like a dad to me. He didn’t take it very well,” he said. “He’s on the back end of his career. He understood.

“I feel like this is a fresh start. I can show things I haven’t been able to show before, expand on things I have been able to show. I feel like I’ll look like a whole new player this year.”