Hey, team basketball practices started yesterday. No, I’m not trying to change the subject. Stop questioning such things.

MMMMmmmm. That new coach smell is still there. Everything is upbeat and positive. There’s energy and good vibes (no, not that one, but now I’m thinking about it) around the players, the coaches and fans.

Pitt’s website has videos of the interviews with Head Coach Jeff Capel, senior Jared Wilson-Frame and junior Malik Ellison.

Practices were open to the media. Obviously, it was primarily drills for the first day.

Jeff Capel was actively involved in running the drills. Something the players and the media found to be new.

“I am pretty involved, I think,” Capel said. “I don’t know how involved, I’m just involved. We have a lot of teaching to do and our guys are very eager and willing listeners and learners. But we have a lot of teaching to do and that’s exciting to me.”

If you watch the video interview, it seems that Capel was a little surprised to be asked abut being so involved. To him there is nothing odd about it.

Capel was an active participant in most practice drills. It was something that has caught the eye of his players.

“I like that,” said redshirt-junior Malik Ellison. “He’s a younger guy, a younger coach. So he’s able to get out there and move with us as well and demonstrate different things. So I just think having an active coach, we all can just feed off his energy, look in more and see what he’s talking about.”

“It’s really fun, to be honest, just because he brings so much energy,” senior Jared Wilson-Frame added. “I think that’s the most enjoyable part about it, he’s always enthusiastic, always going hard.

“That’s what you see all the time now, guys are screaming and flexing all the time. [The coaching staff] have that same energy themselves. So it pushes us to go a little harder every day, when you see your leader being like that every day.”

Capel admitted that he does not spend much time talking about last year’s dismal season, but did admit that there’s a lot to improve on based on what he saw from that squad.

“We want to play a little bit faster than they did last year,” he said. “Defensively, we want to be better than the statistics were last year.”

Every coach says they want to play faster. Capel comes from a system that definitely does. But at the same time, it will be harder to play slower since Pitt was absolutely among the slowest tempo teams last year. The same thing can be said about the defensive play from last year. There really is only one direction to go.

Jared Wilson-Frame showed flashes last year, but was very inconsistent. Especially with his outside shot. One of the big changes from him was losing weight.

“The first day we got back (to school), I saw Malik (Ellison) and Kene (Chukwuka) in the weight room drowning in sweat,” Wilson-Frame said. “I looked at myself and said, ‘I need to get working. This is my last year, new system, new coach.’

“All the things that reminded me of the past, I told myself I had to get rid of that stuff.”

So he sat down and had a long talk with the team’s director of sports performance, Garry Christopher.

No pressure, but it was determined Wilson-Frame should lose some weight. He ended last season at 245 pounds, and he said he started practice Tuesday at 220.

Wilson-Frame said losing weight was far more than just pulling away from the dinner table.

“Diet was definitely something you have to pay attention to. Staying away from certain foods and trying to proportion things right,” he said. “But the most important thing, honestly, I did was just working really, really hard. I can’t say there’s a secret formula for that, just working really, really hard.”

This will be very important for Wilson-Frame, because if the team is going to be better defensively and be more up-tempo. Well, he has to keep up. He’s going to be defending on the perimeter and asked to switch inside on forwards as well as guards.

And Malik Ellison gave a great explanation as to why this team will be more up-tempo.

Ellison said practices this season “are way more intense.” There’s also “way more attention to detail.”

“We are playing at a faster pace, all drills are fast-paced, moving, constantly, up and down the court,” he said.

Without an experienced frontcourt — 6-foot-10 Terrell Brown, 6-9 Peace Ilegomah and 6-9 Chukwuka were first-year players last season — Pitt’s guard play will be critical.

“We’re going to have to play small,” Ellison said. “A lot of our points are going to be in transition.”

And that means getting out quickly. Not simply being conditioned to being out on the court, but able to put on those bursts to get out on offense (and get back on defense).

While the coaches do their best to not talk about last year’s complete disaster, Wilson-Frame sees it as personal fuel.

Wilson-Frame is reminded of those uncomfortable truths every day when he looks toward the upper deck at Petersen Events Center where logos of every conference team stare back at him.

“When we’re conditioning and guys feel like they don’t want to go any harder or it seems they’re about to give up,” he said, “we all look up there and remind ourselves we can’t put a ‘W’ on not one of those pictures, not even our own.

“It’s almost like an angry feeling, like a chip on your shoulder. That’s something we all as returners push on the freshmen that we take really seriously. Turning this thing around, this whole program, bring it back to the greatness that was involved with this program.”

The team will be part of homecoming weekend Friday night on October 5. They are doing the “Courtside at the Cathedral” event along with the women’s basketball team.

Courtside at the Cathedral festivities begin at 8 p.m. and feature player introductions for the men’s and women’s basketball teams, a shooting stars competition, a student halfcourt shootout for $1,000 to the Pitt University Store and a slam dunk contest on an outdoor court on Bigelow Boulevard. Four students will also be selected to participate in the shooting stars competition along with a player from the men’s and women’s teams.

Additional details, as well as guest hosts and dunk contest judges, will be announced at a later date.

The event will take place in front of the Cathedral of Learning, one of the marquee landmarks at the University of Pittsburgh and in the city and will be a part of Pitt’s Homecoming celebration. Festivities begin at 8 p.m. on Bigelow Boulevard and culminate with the annual Fireworks and Laser Show presented by the Pitt Program Council scheduled to begin at 9 p.m.

I really love these things. More for the students then anyone else. And after the last couple of years, the Oakland Zoo deserves to have stuff done on their behalf.