The Duke Blue Devils announced on Monday that they are bringing in a former player to be an assistant on their coaching staff: former Oklahoma Sooners head coach Jeff Capel.
While the Oklahoma Sooners fired Jeff Capel after he suffered three losing seasons since taking over as head coach, Duke looks at his hiring in a different way. Jeff Capel coached the greatest collegiate power forward of the last decade in Blake Griffin.
Now, Capel can take the experience of helping develop Blake Griffin’s career and work with the Duke Blue Devil’s big men. Immediately, Jeff Capel will start working with Mason Plumlee, an athlete with superb agility and abilities but underdeveloped offensive skills. Capel will also work with Miles and Marshall Plumlee in developing their games.
With the big time shooters coming into the Duke system, if Capel can successfully develop the offensive game of the Plumlee brothers, Duke will be on the top once again.
What Duke has to hope is that Jeff Capel is the real deal in coaching and not someone who was carried by a player like Blake Griffin. When someone like Griffin comes along, it is special. If Blake Griffin was responsible for the Sooners success and Capel was just along for the ride, Duke might be purchasing damaged goods.
However, Jeff Capel was successful at VCU and looked good coaching the U.S. National team as well. He recruited Blake Griffin, who said he would not have attended Oklahoma if not for Capel’s recruiting. That area will help the young assistant succeed as an assistant and it is possible coaching under Coach Mike Krzyzewski will help Capel when he earns his next head coaching job.
“My initial feeling was that I was going to be out of coaching for at least a year,” Capel said. “I had thought about trying to maybe do some TV and had talked to some people who were generous enough to listen and to contemplate giving me an opportunity. But when this situation came up, it was just too good to pass up.”
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