As the clock wound down on North Carolina's first conference game of the season, Capel, a senior, and freshman Melvin Scott trapped Georgia Tech's Tony Akins.
Akins tried to pass out of the fray but lost control of the ball. Capel tipped the ball up and ahead to Scott, who was breaking for the Tar Heels' basket in front of a jubilant UNC bench at the Smith Center.
Scott snagged the ball out of the air, drove for the layup, his eighth and ninth points of the game, and got fouled by Halston Lane.
When the ball dropped through the net with 5.1 ticks remaining on the clock, it sealed UNC's first victory of the season. Capel pumped his fists and hopped around by himself at midcourt, reveling and remembering what it felt like to win.
Scott hit the free-throw to make it official -- North Carolina 83, Georgia Tech 77. Not only are the Tar Heels (1-3, 1-0 in the ACC) no longer winless, but they are undefeated in the conference.
UNC doesn't face another ACC foe until Wake Forest on Jan. 5.
"We're 1-0 in the ACC, and we can look at the standings for almost a month and say that we're at the top of the ACC," UNC coach Matt Doherty said. "Hopefully that will give us some confidence, and hopefully we'll stay there for a while."
By winning, the Tar Heels "stopped the bleeding," as Capel put it. They avoided earning the dubious distinction of becoming the first squad in school history to win not one of its first four games.
The losses and the chatter about the possible slide of the program were weighing on the players' minds, whether they would admit it before the win against the Yellow Jackets.