00:00If you mention the 2001-2002 college basketball season to a UNC alum, they might wince, they might get mad
00:07at you, or they might mumble fucking Jason Capel under their breath.
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00:20one time that we don't talk about.
00:22I'm just kidding. It's always lovely.
00:25Now, back to the show.
00:26The University of North Carolina is a pillar of NCAA basketball.
00:31It's a tradition-rich program that verges on mythical, especially for its fans.
00:36Aside from having the most Final Four appearances of any school, aside from the fact that Michael Jordan and other
00:42NBA players went there, there's also the lore.
00:46Starting with the Carolina Way, instituted by legendary coach Dean Smith,
00:51The Way centers around his line, play hard, play smart, play together.
00:57Kind of seems like advice any coach anywhere would give, but Smith's words are elevated to a hollowed mantra for
01:04the Carolina basketball family.
01:05Which brings me to our next piece of lore, the Carolina family, uniting fans and players as one.
01:12And again, this sentiment could be nothing.
01:15It could be just something written on some poster in the dining hall that everyone ignores.
01:20But it isn't.
01:22It's meaningful to the fans and players.
01:24The Carolina family is not just some PR campaign.
01:27It's real.
01:29This alumni magazine article recounts a story of a former professor on his deathbed fighting to extend his life a
01:36few more days so he could watch one more Tar Heel Final Four.
01:40He told his adult son he had lost his fear and was ready to die, but wanted to watch, hear
01:46really, one last Tar Heel Final Four performance.
01:49He promised to hang in there, and it was difficult, but he made it.
01:55So, yeah, the Carolina family is taken quite seriously.
02:01Which is perhaps what made the 0-1-0-2 season hurt so bad.
02:05And perhaps what left fans with no choice but to make the face of the 0-1-0-2 team
02:11hurt so bad.
02:12Hi, Jason Capel.
02:14Before we get into how UNC took their anger and shame out on Capel as hard as they possibly could
02:20within legal limits, let's look at why the buck fell to him.
02:24Capel was, for lack of a better player, the star of UNC in that worst-in-history season.
02:30Problem was, he wasn't good enough for that role.
02:34He had some success early in his college career because he had Brendan Haywood and Joseph Forte attracting defenders and
02:41leaving him wide open.
02:43But with those two guys off to the NBA, all the defensive pressure was on Capel.
02:48And it immediately became clear Jason couldn't handle that pressure.
02:53UNC lost three of their first four games as Jason went three of 26 from beyond the arc.
03:00But, okay, can you totally blame the kid?
03:03He had to star and didn't have the talent to do so.
03:06That's a tough spot to be in.
03:08And it's tougher because the previous season, Capel wanted to be the star and was kind of bitchy about it.
03:15Let's take a look at that previous season.
03:17In February 2001, an article came out calling Jason a role player, someone on a lower level than centerpiece Joseph
03:23Forte.
03:25And Capel did not like that one bit.
03:28Though, come on, Capel, there was a lot to be happy about.
03:31Like an 18-game win streak and a number one in the nation ranking.
03:35By Valentine's Day, they'd only lost two games all season.
03:40Come on, perk up, Capel.
03:42Then, on February 18th, they lost to Clemson.
03:46A few days later, they lost to another ACC team.
03:49After that game, Capel said, without naming names directly, that Forte shoots too much.
03:56Forte was 11 of 25 that night.
03:58The Heels went on to fully collapse.
04:01Rounded out the year by losing to Duke twice and then bowing out of the tournament in the second round.
04:07There were rumors that infighting was to blame.
04:10And those rumors had some clout because Forte had been in a shooting slump from the UVA game on.
04:16A slump which he attributed, in part, to being called a ball hog by a teammate in the national press.
04:22Forte left for the NBA after the 0-1 season, and some felt that Capel was at least part of
04:29the reason why.
04:30And, you know, Capel really didn't mind that Forte left early.
04:35He was excited to be the guy for the 0-1-0-2 season.
04:39He was confident.
04:41Very confident.
04:43Off-puttingly confident.
04:45So, it wasn't just that the young man was the leader of the worst team in program history.
04:49It was that, combined with his self-indulgent confidence, that so incensed the Carolina fanbase.
04:55How did that fanbase express their feelings?
04:58Mostly via anonymous message boards.
05:01Perhaps not the most noble form of critique, but one which held very few restraints.
05:07The internet has been scrubbed of these message boards.
05:10I'm not saying it was because of the content, but the content was pretty bad from the circumstantial evidence I
05:17was able to collect.
05:18Let's get into it.
05:19After starting the season 1-4, Capel told the press he was looking forward to their first away game because
05:25he wanted to get away from his home crowd's negativity.
05:28Now, I would think it would take a lot of negativity to turn on your home crowd like that.
05:34The boards definitely said the team was better off when Capel was out with a concussion.
05:39Which, alright, isn't that bad.
05:41But this implies things got far worse.
05:44This statement is from the anonymous message board moderator, who felt shame for years.
05:52And I also found this.
05:54Jason's brother, Jeff, an assistant coach at Virginia Commonwealth University, joined the conversation to defend his brother.
06:00A working assistant coach could not hold himself back.
06:04How I wish I could find the post he was responding to.
06:08Now, I was able to find some message board posts about Jason in 2009.
06:13There were basically three areas of attack.
06:16One, Jason Capel resembled the shoe bomber, the failed terrorist of 01 and the reason we have to take our
06:22shoes off at airport security.
06:24Second line of attack was Capel's self-indulgent celebration of throwing up antlers on his forehead.
06:30One incident in particular stood out.
06:32He threw him up after hitting a three when UNC was down 25 to Maryland.
06:39And the third line of attack, his propensity to pump fake.
06:42So, I think it's fair to assume these were likely the themes of the 02 message boards, since they'd lingered
06:48all the way to 2009.
06:50Wait, why were Carolina message boards even talking about him seven years later?
06:55Well, because in 09, Jason's brother Jeff was coaching the Oklahoma Sooners in an Elite Eight game against UNC.
07:04And Jason was very diplomatic, said nice things about both teams.
07:07He clearly knew how to not ruffle feathers.
07:11But then he chose to grab the chicken and fuck up its feathers.
07:15Why be upfront about it?
07:18Obviously?
07:18Come on, man.
07:20You knew the UNC family wasn't going to take that quietly sitting down in the bleachers next to a former
07:26player in an Oklahoma shirt.
07:28According to a local paper, fans ribbed him during the Sooners game.
07:33But according to Jeff Capel, the treatment by UNC fans was far, far worse.
07:39And actually partly justified Jason being salty 14 years later.
07:43And the Carolina fans were pretty shitty towards, excuse my language, but pretty, pretty nasty.
07:51That's right.
07:52This is a press conference 14 years after that Elite Eight game.
07:57Why is his brother talking about ancient history?
08:00Well, because one, this is one of those deep cuts of beef.
08:04Two, Jeff was the head coach of Pitt, an occasional UNC opponent.
08:08And he had hired his little bro as an assistant coach.
08:11And three, there was an incident.
08:14Well, two incidents, really.
08:15In 2022, Pitt pulled off a surprise victory in the Dean Smith Center.
08:20And on his way to the tunnel, Jason Capel screamed something at the fans about the team being soft.
08:25In the same building, he led the team to an 8-20 record.
08:29His parting shot was not soon forgotten.
08:31And when the Heels made it to the championship game in 2022, fans threw it in Capel's face.
08:36Then, the following year, the Panthers again beat UNC on their home court in a thrilling one-point victory.
08:43As Pitt celebrated on their way off the floor, Capel did not leave.
08:47Instead, choosing to scream at fans and UNC's Senior Associate Athletic Director for Media Relations,
08:53who was telling him to go to the locker room.
08:56Capel did eventually leave, but he did not stop yelling.
09:00Now, this specific statement, I'm guessing, came from the emotional part of his brain, rather than the logical part.
09:07Because 8-20 is not holding any shit together, as Twitter and Reddit were quick to point out.
09:14They also made fun of his pump fake some more, and hit him with the role-player label he hated
09:19so much.
09:20I think what his logical brain might have wanted to say was something like,
09:24I'm hurt that you guys were so ruthless to me in my playing days, I was just a kid who
09:29was trying hard,
09:30I would like a little respect, treat me like a family member, but he didn't say that.
09:36Instead, two years in a row, he showed some of that same self-indulgent confidence that fans hated when he
09:41was a player.
09:42And that's why, 21 years after Jason Capel played for UNC, his older brother is talking about the beef in
09:49a post-game presser.
09:50And brother Jeff had a lot to say.
09:52In addition to bringing up the 0-9 Sooners game, he claimed this tweet justifiably riled up his little brother.
09:59Carolina Basketball posted this before the pick game.
10:03Jason had worn number 25, this kid who wore 25 didn't play that much,
10:08and his tongue was out, so, yeah, I'm not really sure what the Cables thought was super offensive here.
10:16The Carolina social media team said they didn't even know Jason had worn number 25.
10:22The commenter army responded with confusion, insults,
10:26and one guy brought up the antler celebration while the team was down 25 points to Maryland.
10:31One moment from one game 21 years ago.
10:35This is one of those deep cuts of beef.
10:37From Jason Capel's point of view, the UNC family has treated him like a black sheep since 2001,
10:43and it isn't fair, and he's angry.
10:46From the UNC family's point of view, Capel humiliated them,
10:50then returned to the family home screaming about not being appreciated for humiliating them,
10:55and he also called a good team soft.
10:58He is the black sheep of the family.
11:01That is, of course, if he's even in the family anymore.
11:14Hey, it's Clara.
11:16It's been Clara the whole time.
11:18Did you know?
11:19Thank you to our patrons.
11:21Thank you to everyone for watching.
11:22Keep the good times going.
11:24For Secret Base, I'm Clara Morris.
11:26Good night and good game.
11:27Good night and good game.
11:29Good night and good game.
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