Rick Pitino's presser proves he's determined to go down in a blaze of irony

We’ve seen a lot of crazy Rick Pitino press conferences over the years, but today’s takes the cake. Following the NCAA’s decision to uphold their penalties in the UofL stripper scandal, Pitino did as Pitino does and demanded the spotlight, calling a press conference this afternoon in New York. The results, as you might imagine, were ridiculous.

He wants everyone to know he can only see out of one eye

Before the press conference even began, Pitino played the victim card, asking the audience’s forgiveness if he can’t read his statement correctly because he can only see out of one eye right now. Just in case the people in the back didn’t hear, he brought it up later.

He wouldn’t stop blaming the Board of Trustees

Pitino spent most of the 19-minute press conference blaming the Board of Trustees — the one appointed by Governor Bevin — for everything, even going so far to remind everyone that the US Attorney tried to disband that board to no avail. Even though he took “full responsibility” for hiring Andre McGee, he circled back to the Board repeatedly, blasting them for not giving him and Tom Jurich a chance to defend themselves. He also said he wants UofL to sue the NCAA over all of this. Ha!

The ESPN article pissed him off

One might think the NCAA’s announcement yesterday was the cause of this presser. Oh, no. Pitino said he called the presser to “get the facts out” after ESPN ran an article yesterday (presumably this one) blaming Louisville’s downfall on him. Even Warren Beatty‘s shaking his head at that.

He still doesn’t get why the stripper parties were a bad thing

In the wake of the 2013 banner coming down, Rick again attempted to argue that the “parties” held by Katina Powell had no correlation to UofL winning the national championship.

“Did a few of them partake in parties they didn’t organize? Yes, they did. But that had nothing to with an extra benefit. That had nothing to do in helping their eligibility or performance in winning a championship.”

He also argued that because the hookers were cheap, the NCAA should have let it slide. Classic Rick.

“We preached treating women with dignity”

BAHAHAHAHAHA. Rick Pitino talking about treating women with dignity. I can’t.

His lawyer tried to step in and stop him but he kept going

Poor lawyer.

He got in the Billy Minardi/9-11 reference

You knew he would.

“I feel awful for what has happened. I’ve run a clean program my whole life.”

That’s Pitino, aka Coach-2, saying that. The same Coach-2 listed in the FBI complaint as working with adidas to paying Brian Bowen’s family $100,000 to come to Louisville. But it’s all the Board of Trustee’s fault, right?

He wants to coach again

The more I think about it, the more I think today was just a PSA that Rick is for hire. He talked at length about how much he misses coaching, his specific methods of connecting with players (“I do something different than any other coach in the business”), his accomplishments, his impressive coaching tree, and how healthy he is — except for that one eye, of course!

His last line was pure irony

For the grand finale, Rick Pitino brought one of the most ironic lines in the history of the English language.

“In today’s world, with what you’re all about, with Twitter and the electronic [sic], anybody who lies is a fool today because the truth is going to be revealed and come out.”

Priceless.

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