Wow, just wow. I had hoped that we were way past the Pitino firing. It’s difficult to understand how anyone would have supported keeping him on as the head coach after the FBI scandal surfaced, even if that would have been only for a “short term”. Enough was enough. The continued embarrassment to the university from scandal after scandal, the definitive statements that keeping him in place would proclaim across the country about our college sports program (certainly in keeping with the sentiment that “the only things that matter are wins and money”, and also that “we don’t care about integrity and scandals, we just want to win”) made keeping him impossible, even for just one more day. In fact, the complete “cleaning of the house” is our best ticket to minimal NCAA sanctions when the FBI scandal plays out.
The difficulties faced by last year’s team were large enough without that team being questioned on a daily basis about the coach’s future and the increased taunting they would have faced on the road; why put them through any of that?
As for the cited past history of Jurich dealing with such difficult situations, I don’t remember any such previous coaching situation that even remotely resembles that. Perhaps the closest thing might have been the abusive lacrosse coach who was fired, by Tyra, not Jurich, more than four years after the abuse first became clear. That program pretty well melted down until the coach was fired.
As for the decline in men’s basketball attendance, yes it was good and consistent in the KFC Yum Center until the stripper scandal broke, and then the attendance decreased noticeably during Jurich’s last two years. Then, after the FBI scandal broke, attendance has suffered another noticeable decline the past two years. Unfortunately, with the increased use of the secondary markets on the internet for tickets, I think it would be difficult to get back to the previous numbers even if there had been no scandals. But, with a great coach in place, a team playing hard (which always excites all fans, especially Louisville fans), promising recruits, and a likely return to top 10 rankings (even if not this year), things are in place for an attendance increase over the next few years.