What?????--Book alleges UofL used escort services
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The only charges are against Rick, and UL certainly doesn't care about that. Unless there is a show cause, they will continue business as usual. What happened at UL was 20 times worse than what Pearl did at UT, and Pearl had a show cause, but I would almost guarantee that nothing happens to Rick. What a friggin joke. The NCAA is a laughing stock. When all this broke, they just should have said that they weren't going to investigate it, since they were not going to punish them, anyway. Same way with UNC. Why even go through the motions when they know, and we know, that they are not going to do anything, in the end. :chairshot:
The NCAA is basically nailing its own coffin shut. What they hand out as penalties in this case will determine their ability to control what member institutions do almost immediately.
If they allow the UofL coaching staff to get by with paying for illegal benefits to recruits without any real consequences then, it will be seen as a sign to member schools that they have abandoned enforcement of their own rules.
Who really didn't see this coming though? The NCAA is all about $$$ now and it's a reflection of society as a whole. Morality, decency and standards are all antiquated notions these days.
If they allow the UofL coaching staff to get by with paying for illegal benefits to recruits without any real consequences then, it will be seen as a sign to member schools that they have abandoned enforcement of their own rules.
Who really didn't see this coming though? The NCAA is all about $$$ now and it's a reflection of society as a whole. Morality, decency and standards are all antiquated notions these days.
Since the 2013-14 season, the NCAA has enacted new, harsher penalties for the Level 1 infraction of which Pitino has been accused. Unless he can prove that he actually did oversee McGee by showing up unannounced from time to time at Minardi Hall during these visit parties and that he performed exit interviews with official visitors, he will receive somewhere between a half-season and a full-season ban for 2017-18. Pitino has already admitted in his interview with the NCAA that he did neither of those things.
Gotta give Rick credit...
In both sex scandals, he has successfully pivoted the narrative to make himself the victim, when in both cases he or his institution was the perpetrator.
In both sex scandals, he has successfully pivoted the narrative to make himself the victim, when in both cases he or his institution was the perpetrator.
How do you know? No one knows. I could see a scenario where they give him a severe or a mild suspension. The case for a severe suspension would be that the NCAA is tired of Rick and his mouth. They had to tell him to shut up during the investigation and he kept talking regardless. And now they hit him with a level 1 infraction and he is fighting it. I could see a scenario where they are tired of his crap. Larry Brown and Jim Bohiem got 9 game suspension and objectively the Pitino situation is way worse
"The NCAA alleges that McGee, a former graduate assistant coach and director of basketball operations, provided impermissible benefits "in the form of adult entertainment, sex acts and/or cash at Billy Minardi Hall . . . or hotels to at least 17 then men's basketball prospective and/or current student-athletes, two then nonscholastic men's basketball coaches and one then men's basketball prospective student-athletes's friend. The value of the impermissible inducements, offers and/or extra benefits was at least $5,400.""
It seems to me that to say someone provided impermissible benefits means someone received impermissible benefits. Louisville might not be completely out of the woods yet. Although the NCAA will probably say those players were given immunity for telling the truth or some such bs.
It seems to me that to say someone provided impermissible benefits means someone received impermissible benefits. Louisville might not be completely out of the woods yet. Although the NCAA will probably say those players were given immunity for telling the truth or some such bs.
It will if he doesn't successfully get his level 1 violation reduced when he goes before the NCAA infractions committee. A ban of between 50% and 100% of the season is a part of the new penalty structure adopted in 2014.
And quite frankly, unless he can prove that he did oversee McGee by occasionally showing up at one of these dorm parties unannounced .. or that he occasionally asked official visitors or their guardians how they enjoyed the party after Pitino left, then he's going to get the book thrown at him.
If having to demonstrate that level of oversight of one of your employees sounds like overkill, it's because it is. PItino didn't have to provide that level of oversight over Billy The Kid or Tubby. Which actually gets back to the real mistake that Pitino made that he will be punished for: hiring someone who couldn't be trusted to follow NCAA rules.
I must be misreading this, or misunderstanding your intent. Are you actually insinuating that Rick didn't know the hooker/sex parties were taking place? And that it is a tragic situation of a "trusted" employee stabbing his leader in the back? LOL!
Think for a minute about all of the layers of the program that literally would have had to have known this stuff was going on - the other asst. coaches, the players, administrative staff, managers, trainers, Minardi Hall staff, etc. ,etc., etc. There is literally no telling how many people besides Andre McGee knew that this stuff was going on. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,.....? So all of these folks during the 4 years (at least) that this was going on felt compelled, for whatever reason(s), to keep Rick totally in the dark on this? And never accidentally slipped up and said something that set his spider sense off? Again, freaking LOL! But just to play along with this fantasy/charade then it seems Rick made the mistake of recruiting and hiring lots of people that he "trusted too much". Sounds like a Shakesperian tragedy.....alas, poor Rick.
So what does Rick deserve for consistently hiring and recruiting untrustworthy people that he should not have been trusting so much to run the inner workings of his program? Golly gee whillikers PushupMan, maybe he should lose his job or something.
This whole deal has some parallels with the Karen Sypher deal. Remember the narrative that Rick and UL put out was that Rick was the "victim" and that he came clean on it, blah, blah, blah. While Rick may have initially been a victim, the rest is BS since he covered it up for several years trying to manage it. Only when it was about to completely blow up did he "come clean".
I have very little reason to believe that Rick and UL have "come clean" on this mess. This is my speculation, but I've got a dollar that says a big reason UL is fighting the FOI request of releasing the documents behind this sordid deal is that it will implicate Rick, his staff, Jurich and god know who else as being well aware of all this prior to the book announcement and they were doing everything in their power to cover up. "Cooperate", "come clean", "get out in front of it", "be proactive"......yeah, right. ROTFLMAO!
I'm not insinuating it. I'm stating the fact that the NoA does not charge Pitino with knowing that the hooker/sex parties were taking place. Everything else is irrelevant at this point, unless someone decides to press charges against Pitino for orchestrating hooker/sex parties in Minardi Hall. Once those charges are filed, I will gladly come over here and discuss those with you.
As far as the FOI case is concerned, it is the right idea, just at the wrong time. Once the NCAA case is finished, UofL will release all of the FOI documents about the case that they are required to. It is against NCAA rules for a member institution to release documents about an open case without NCAA approval.
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Pushup man:
I notice that you are writing in objective third person narrative. Let's get personal. I know you to be an no nonsense church going person and ask for your personal opinion. For a moment pretend you are not a Louisville fan. If this happened at University of Cincinnati would you agree with these findings. What, in your opinion, should the penalty be. Should the head coach of Cincinnati be forced out or not. And finally, what is your opinion of the activities at Minardi Hall. Are you embarrassed ? Don't care one way or the other ? Or what ?
I notice that you are writing in objective third person narrative. Let's get personal. I know you to be an no nonsense church going person and ask for your personal opinion. For a moment pretend you are not a Louisville fan. If this happened at University of Cincinnati would you agree with these findings. What, in your opinion, should the penalty be. Should the head coach of Cincinnati be forced out or not. And finally, what is your opinion of the activities at Minardi Hall. Are you embarrassed ? Don't care one way or the other ? Or what ?
He lied during restaurant table gate, and he is lying now during hooker gate !! McGee has been paid by Jurich to keep quite so there is nothing NCAA can do to him since he is out of coaching. I am sure he was promised he would be well taken care of.
Wrong, the quote I called you out on in no way shape or form states what the NOA contains. Does the NOA say that "Rick's mistake was trusting someone who didn't follow the rules?"
That certainly looks like your opinion on what Rick's "mistake" was, and if I'm incorrect in saying that, then by all means go ahead tell us if you think Rick knew. And if I am correct then please regale us with your version of how his staff, team, and everybody else in the program managed to keep it from him. It's been a long week, I could use another good laugh.
So NCAA member institutions are exempt from federal laws based on their NCAA affiliation. I honestly did not know that an NCAA open case has legal precedence over federal laws. I guess that was a Supreme Court ruling that I must have missed somewhere down the line. I owe apologies to UNC since they really were being above board when they willingly (or were they forced to by the courts??) responded to the FOI requests from the News & Observer while their NCAA open case was/is still going on. If only they knew that all they had to say was "Sorry, we can't. NCAA won't let us". LOL!
You can hide behind what the NOA says all you want and consider everything else irrelevant at this point. Which is an interesting, and telling, phrase BTW. But, that is the UL fan mindset that we've come to love, and laugh at. Keep trying to defend the indefensible.
I'm not necessarily a big Matt Jones fan, but his quote the other day was as spot on as it gets. I paraphrase - "At any other university, Rick Pitino is unemployed today". But to you, and most other UL fans, I guess that's just "irrelevant" at this point. LOL!
Actually, I am a lapsed Catholic, so not a church goer. Embarrassed for my University, definitely. If Pitino knew about the activities, I would want him fired, despite all the great things he has done at UofL since 2001. Apparently, the NCAA does not believe he did, and they could not find any evidence that he did, despite interviewing over 100 witnesses. That the NCAA believed Pitino did not know is very surprising to me, because they definitely did NOT believe Clint Hurtt when he was interviewed regarding the violations at Miami.
I will admit that if it was the University of Cincinnati and not UofL that had committed these violations, I would probably think differently. For one thing, I wouldn't be following the details nearly as closely as I am now. I would probably have formed the opinion without doing much reading that the head coach had to know and would wonder why the NCAA did not find that he did.
Rick's mistake was hiring someone who didn't follow the rules and got caught not following them. I would be leading the charge to fire the man myself had the NoA come back and found him guilty of a level 1 infraction for having knowledge of and failing to report McGee's actions.
To be quite honest, the NoA was a pleasant surprise to me in that regard. I remember quite vividly Clint Hurtt getting his show-cause penalty for what happened at Miami, and I expected the NCAA to not believe Pitino either when he said he had no knowledge.
Turned UofL from a zero percent graduation rate under Denny to a 65% graduation rate and 1000 APR school annually, winning an annual academic achievement award for being in the top 10% in APR score from the NCAA for the last seven years in a row.
How can a self professed: "I am in control" type person not know? He should have known and was paid to know and claims he knows everything about his program.
Now he claims, he got played. Sypher played him right down his leg in 15 secs.
I guess he trusted Sypher, too.
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So prior to the NOA's release you expected the NCAA to not believe Rick's testimony that he didn't know.......which seems to indicate that, at that time, you did not believe Rick either.
But then.......... when the NCAA chooses to believe Rick you flip to "Rick made a mistake via a bad hire", and since NOA absolves him you fell no need for Rick to lose his job. Throw in the "everything else is irrelevant other than the NOA drivel" from earlier and it appears that you deserve your picture as part of the definition of win at all costs.
Tom and Rick loves fan like you, they really, really do. LOL!
I'm going to have to stop, I'm feeling guilty for picking on you.
Good luck with your "assistant coach arranging and paying for recruits and players to be screwed by street hookers for at least 4 years in the basketball dorm while your control freak head coach was so disconnected from the program he didn't know anything about it" scandal.
OK, now I'm done.
Actually what may have saved Pitino strangely enough may have been Katina herself. She has said in a number of interviews on TV that she didn't feel that Pitino knew what was going on.
Not to hijack your 3rd street belief, but I remember her saying many times that "Rick knows everything" in the interviews I watched.
Does Pitino ever speak publicly with out a, "poor me", comment or two? He has never done anything wrong.....the world is against him/his team! He looks like death warmed over. How can he on one hand say that, "no one runs a tighter program than he does" and then turn around and say "I didn't know one thing about this"? UL the program that promotes Hedonism!
I think the exchange you are referring to is when Katina asked Andre if Rick knew, his smiling reply was "Rick knows everything".