The 5 most likely candidates to succeed Coach K at Duke now that Jeff Capel is headed to Pitt

Jeff Capel was widely speculated to be Mike Krzyzewski’s replacement when retirement finally came calling for the longtime Duke basketball coach. After all, Capel was a Coach K product forged in the fires of 1990s Blue Devil basketball, when the program reached its peak of both ESPN saturation and its floor-slapping lack of awareness.

Capel’s resume goes beyond his Duke ties. He was raised by a college basketball coach; his father Jeff Capel II spent eight seasons leading North Carolina A&T and Old Dominion. The younger Capel even racked up winning records and NCAA tournament appearances in stints as head coach at Virginia Commonwealth and Oklahoma before his firing at the latter led him back to Durham and the coach who groomed him as a player.

But Capel is no longer an assistant coach at Duke University. Instead he’ll be head coach of a program that faces the Blue Devils twice a year in ACC play — the University of Pittsburgh.

Capel will reportedly accept the Panthers’ open head coach position weeks after the school fired Kevin Stallings after just two season. Stallings picked up just four conference wins during his time at Pitt. The move represents a second chance at leading a Power 5 program for Capel, but it also leaves some questions for Duke. Namely, who’s next up in line to replace an eventually-retiring Krzyzewski now that his top assistant is gone?

Hurley comes from a lineage of great coaches; his father Bobby Sr. was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame after winning 28 New Jersey state championships at St. Anthony High School. That guidance led Bobby Hurley to Duke, where he was a two-time All-American and two-time NCAA champion under Krzyzewski. After some time away from the sport, he emerged as an assistant coach at Wagner in 2010 — and his star has grown exponentially in the eight years since.

Two seasons at Wagner and one coaching alongside brother Dan at the University of Rhode Island led him to a head coach job at Buffalo, where he pushed the Bulls to a pair of division crowns and the university’s first-ever NCAA tournament bid. His quick success earned him an opportunity at Arizona State, where a pair of losing seasons led to what looked like a breakthrough in 2017-18. The Sun Devils were ranked as high as No. 3 this winter after toppling teams like Xavier and Kansas, but barely limped into the Big Dance before bowing out in the First Four.

That took some of the bloom from his rose, but he’s a Duke alum with a solid resume. That will keep him in the conversation for a long time.

Speaking of Duke grads who have proven they can win at schools with rigorous academic requirements, Collins is the only coach in Northwestern history to take the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament. The former Blue Devil is another ‘90s Krzyzewski product who spent 13 years as an assistant coach before being lured to the Big Ten.

Northwestern looked like a no-win situation, but Collins has been able to glean success from a basketball program whose foundation was made from Ritz crackers. While the Wildcats backslid in 2017-18, the goodwill from their run to the Round of 32 last March will make Collins a sought-after candidate at Duke — and elsewhere.

Amaker’s first head coaching run at Seton Hall ended in disappointment, and his second gig at scandal-ridden Michigan peaked with an NIT title. Neither of those stretches suggest the kind of qualifications necessary to graduate to one of college basketball’s highest-regarded positions, but his work amassing wins and Ivy League titles over an 11-year span at Harvard has helped rehabiliate his image as a coach.

Amaker has proven he can win in non-traditional settings after punching the Crimson into the top 25 in 2012 and 2015. He’s twice advanced out of the first round of the NCAA tournament, though he hasn’t been since 2015. The former Duke point guard has served as an assistant under Krzyzewski in years past and proven he can run a clean program. He’s turned down overtures to leave Boston previously — could he be waiting for the right job to open up in Durham?

An extremely Duke move would be to replace the one guy with the impossible-to-spell Polish surname with another who came to embody the floor-slapping intensity (or goofiness) Krzyzewski demanded. Wojciechowski played for the Blue Devils from 1994 to 1998, spent a year playing basketball abroad, then came back to take an assistant coaching role at his alma mater. He was promoted all the way up to associate head coach before earning a promotion when Marquette pegged him for its top job.

Wojo’s tenure in Milwaukee hasn’t been especially successful. He’s guided the Eagles to a 60-40 record the past three years after a rebuilding season his first year with the team. That’s resulted in just a single NCAA tournament berth. Marquette hasn’t been ranked in the AP poll in any of the four season’s he’s been head coach.

Capel moved on to the Pittsburgh job, but that doesn’t disqualify him from a return to his alma mater. While the Panthers will likely ink their new head coach to an expensive buyout, the cost is something an elite program like Duke can afford. Pitt, who just spent nearly $10 million just to prevent Kevin Stallings from coaching its team, would likely welcome a little cash infusion.

The question is whether his time working to revive the hollowed-out shell of a once-proud program would damage Capel’s stock to the point where Duke would no longer consider him a top candidate. Pittsburgh just suffered through its worst season since joining a conference in 1976. A roster stocked with three-star talent is primed to transfer away from Oakland en masse. The Panthers are a total rebuild.

But that’s good for Capel, because his first few years on the job will be a no-lose situation. If he has Pitt trending upward — even if the team isn’t earning at-large bids — it will be enough to boost his coaching stock and prove he can win without committing NCAA violations. That could be enough to lure him back to Duke.

Capel’s a wild card now that he’s at Pitt, but his new job shouldn’t affect his candidacy too badly unless he completely tanks the Panthers — a team already in the tank. Here’s how I’d order these Duke grad’s chances of being offered the chance to return to the sideline at Cameron Indoor Stadium:

5. Steve Wojciechowski
4. Tommy Amaker
3. Chris Collins
2. Jeff Capel
1. Bob Hurley