Sports

'Welcome home': Ricardo Greer, Ronald Ramon excited to reunite with Pitt basketball on Jeff Capel's staff

By Christopher Carter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The Tribune Content Agency

May 7, 2026 11:15 PM

Thursday was a homecoming of sorts for two former Pitt basketball stars who will now work under Jeff Capel.

Ricardo Greer and Ronald Ramon sat in Petersen Events Center on Thursday afternoon for their first press conference as newly added coaches to the program. Ramon noted he'd been on the job for four weeks, while Greer just arrived on Tuesday.

"Pittsburgh is different because it holds a special place for me, being a former athlete here," Greer said.

The Big East Conference's Most Improved Player in 2000 didn't believe the initial phone call was real and told the person to lose his number if it was a prank. But five minutes later, the call came from Capel, and that was all Greer needed.

"It's just an amazing feeling to be back home," Greer said. "I'm super excited for the future."

Ramon echoed Greer's excitement as he recalled his career with the Panthers, for whom he made 233 3-pointers - which is still fourth most in school history.

"It feels great," Ramon said. "Playing here at the Petersen Event Center, seeing what it was and how we're going to get it to that again ... and being part of everything Capel has done here in this program, it feels amazing. It's welcome home for me."

Ramon's homecoming is his third stint with the program. He played under Jamie Dixon from 2004-08 and was hired by Capel in 2019 before he left in 2021 to be an assistant coach at Fordham under Kyle Neptune.

While Ramon was familiar with being in Petersen Events Center, Greer noted he never had watched a game in the arena after he graduated from Pitt in 2001. While he was showed the specs for the building when he was recruited to Pitt by Ralph Willard, construction wasn't complete for the facility until after Greer's senior season.

After Greer played for Pitt basketball in its final year being housed by Fitzgerald Field House, his new head coach, Ben Howland, asked for Greer to be part of the opening of Petersen Events Center.

"Coach Howland calls me at the time and says, ‘Hey, I need you to do me a favor,' " Greer recalled. " ‘We're cutting ribbons for the Petersen Events Center.' I was the one that cut the ribbons and then I was gone. I've never watched a game here, so I can't wait to be coaching a game and be in this environment."

Greer turned to coaching in 2017, when he became an assistant for Dayton's men's basketball team and was eventually promoted to associate head coach in 2021. It was while he lived in Dayton, Ohio, that he got a chance to watch Pitt up close when he saw the Panthers' last-second 60-59 win over Mississippi State in the play-in round of the 2023 NCAA tournament.

"That was a very proud moment for myself," Greer said. "I was excited to have my Pitt gear on. I was walking through the Dayton fans, and they'd say, ‘Coach Grier!' And I'd say, ‘Pitt's playing man, and I'm a Pitt guy right now.' And to see them win that game was phenomenal. I was very proud to be part of that."

Greer played for Pitt from 1999-2001, which was just before Pitt began a 10-year run of making the NCAA tournament. Ramon played on four of those teams and hit a buzzer-beater game-winning 3-pointer for a 55-54 win over West Virginia in the 174th Backyard Brawl at Petersen Events Center on Feb. 7, 2008.

But now both are back where college basketball began for them and ready to help Capel in a time when NIL and a much more active transfer portal have changed how the game is played and coached.

Despite those changes, both still see an essential aspect of coaching to be the connection they make with players on and off the court regardless of how common it is for players to leave programs after just one season.

"You still have a responsibility to get them to the best version of themselves," Ramon said. "We can't speed up the process. There's no such thing, especially on the floor. ... They want you to make them get them better and get them to play at a high level. So, for us, it's the same process when it comes to that development stage."

"No kid is coming here readymade to to go out there and be the best versions of themselves," Greer added. "So you have to be able to not only develop them on the court but spend time with them off the court, build a relationship with them, to be able to understand what [makes them] tick. How are they going to help you win games?"

Last season, Pitt finished 13-20 - the second-worst record for the program under Capel. That doesn't deter either coach from his enthusiasm, both to work with Capel and to aid the program they helped build rise back to winning standards.

"We've been part of the culture here," Ramon said. "We wore the jersey and we gave a lot to it. So [Capel] understands that. He cares about this university a lot and he wants it to be successful. So, for us, [we want] to bring that same passion, the same energy and kind of connect with the players that are going to come in in order to translate that."