PITTSBURGH — Jeff Capel’s firing at Oklahoma seven years ago left him shaken. He found solace, security and peace as an assistant at Duke, soaking up everything coach, mentor and friend Mike Krzyzewski offered, no matter how mundane.

Over time, jobs would occasionally pop up. Capel would take a look but never really came close to leaving.

Then Capel spent three hours with Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke and chancellor Patrick Gallagher on Monday. And all the boxes were checked.

An ACC gig. Desirable facilities. A program with a pedigree. A seven-year contract to build the Panthers the way he wanted. All of it was there.

Just in case Capel needed a nudge, he received one early Tuesday morning when he bolted upright thinking the feeling at the end of his bed was 5-year-old Elijah wanting to crash with his parents.

It wasn’t.

“That’s when I knew my dad was there, letting me know (Pitt) was the right decision,” said Capel, whose father Jeff Capel II spent more than 30 years coaching in high school, college and the NBA before his death last November.

So Capel called Lyke on Tuesday morning and accepted the challenge of taking over the only one Division I team to go winless in conference play this season, a freefall that cost Kevin Stallings his job and sent Lyke on an 18-day odyssey to find his successor.

It ended with Capel in a blue suit and gold tie standing underneath a banner at Petersen Events Center on Wednesday, eager at 43 to try and shake the Panthers out of a funk that has turned them from an NCAA Tournament fixture under Jamie Dixon to a cautionary tale during Stallings’ brief tenure, one that ended on March 8 after Pitt finished 8-24 and 0-18 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Capel is tasked with turning back the clock while simultaneously pushing the Panthers forward at the same time. He believes everything is in place. If it wasn’t, he would have stayed with the Blue Devils.

“It was about the right fit,” Capel said.

One that, at least externally, Lyke seemed to have trouble finding. Pitt made a lucrative offer to former Rhode Island coach Dan Hurley, who passed to take the same position at Connecticut.

While the opening appeared to be languishing, Lyke insisted it was not. She blocked out the noise on social media and went all in on Capel.

The path ahead figures to be bumpy considering eight of Pitt’s conference losses came by at least 20 points. Capel is willing to ride it out.

“Is it daunting? Yes. I knew that when I took the job,” he said. “But all new jobs are daunting. That’s the nature of what we do.”