PITTSBURGH — I remember the final few months of the Kevin Stallings era of Pitt basketball and just how awful that was.

It was 2017-18, and in just two seasons Stallings and then-athletic director Scott Barnes managed to destroy the house that Jamie Dixon and Ben Howland built.

Petersen Events Center was a morgue, devoid of atmosphere. And the product on the floor was an absolute embarrassment. Those were hard days for those of us who covered or observed the team during the glory years of Howland and Dixon, when a ticket to men’s basketball was the hottest in town.

The Pete and the Oakland Zoo were loud and vibrant prior to the end of the Dixon era. It was one of the toughest places in the country to play and the Panthers almost never lost in that building. And when they were really rolling, they would welcome teams ranked in the top five into the building then punish them possession by possession.

Dixon obviously wanted something different and left for his alma mater and Barnes hired Stallings, a good coach who did a good job at Vanderbilt but one who was clearly burned out and an incredibly unpopular hire.

In two years under Stallings, the Panthers went from an NCAA tournament team to one that went 0-18 in the ACC and regularly got thumped at home. It was a disaster of a hire and Heather Lyke, who took over for Barnes, quickly rectified the situation by firing Stallings.

Jeff Capel was then hired to take over the program and the joy returned to Mudville, as there were high hopes he would be the guy to get it right. He came highly recommended, had some success at Oklahoma and was the associate head coach of the No. 1 program in the ACC, Duke.

There is no reason Capel shouldn’t have succeeded here. But somehow, eight years later, it just has not worked. Something is missing with the Capel era, which is in Year 8, and the Panthers have no chance of making the NCAA tournament, regardless of how well they play in the final two months of the season.

Saturday, though, was something different as the Panthers got smoked by Louisville in front of a half-empty Petersen Events Center. Pitt was down 28-7 before most of the people who did bother to go to the game got into their seats. They ended up losing 100-59.

I don’t know what rock bottom is, but I know what it feels like and this was it. The Cardinals embarrassed the Panthers. It wasn’t even as close as the score indicated. Worse than being outclassed, the Panthers were outplayed and it was fair to question their effort.

Capel has had modest success — one NCAA tournament in seven seasons and a couple of other competitive teams — which is to say he did actually rebuild the program from the dumpster fire it was when he took over.

He took it from horrific to above average, which is not necessarily easy to do in some cases. But Saturday and really several other times this season — such as losses to Hofstra and Quinnipiac — felt a whole lot like the Stallings era.

That’s not a compliment.

I actually don’t know what the answer for Pitt is at this point, what will solve everything that ails the program. It is probably time to pull the plug on Capel and his program, and if Pitt is serious about fielding a competitive basketball program his contract won’t matter in this decision.

I keep hearing that they cannot move on from Capel because he has an excellent recruiting class coming in next year. Do people who say that have any clue about how college basketball and college athletics are played these days?

The recruiting class next year is irrelevant to the discussion about Capel and his future. You don’t win with a bunch of young players and there is a good chance most, if not all, of them will be gone by their second season as they chase NIL dollars.

It makes no sense to tie Capel’s future to his recruiting class, especially since there is an excellent general manager in place who is equally as responsible for getting that class signed. If Capel is fired, the class can still be salvaged. And if it isn’t, who cares? The next coach is going to build his first team out of transfers anyway.

Capel is just the first domino, though. The athletic department has to look deeply into how much it is supporting the program, how much in terms of resources the program has and what needs to be done to make the program more attractive to the best coaches and players available.

That means an investment of money — and it might be money the athletic department doesn’t have but certainly needs to find, and quickly.

Rock bottom is where Capel found the program and unfortunately he has run it back down to that level again. It is incredible when you think about the optimism around Capel when he was hired. But here we are.

Pitt should be good in basketball, and over time with the right coach and support has proven it can be good in basketball. But it takes the right coach working with the right commitment from the athletic department to make it work. The program seems to be a long way from that now.

The Panthers have six home games left and 13 games overall and it is going to take a minor miracle for them to finish with a record above .500. The last two seasons Pitt decided to forgo the NIT and end the season after the ACC tournament. But that isn’t even in the equation for this team.

A program that once was a fixture in the NCAA tournament has fallen so far that it won’t even have the opportunity to compete in the NIT. I am sure there is some joke about the CBI or CB4 or whatever the heck it was called — Pitt actually won that mess once — but the program in this state is no longer a laughing matter.

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