Louisville Basketball: Self-imposed tournament ban came a year too early

The Louisville basketball program slapped its own wrist by self-imposing a ban from this year’s NCAA tournament, but their swiftness may have cost two players more than they deserved.

Hey, the Louisville Cardinals screwed up. You know it. I know it. The American People know it. I’d venture to say even Bob Dole knows it. And while normally it would be applause-worthy for a program to hand down a self-destructive sentence on their own, in this case Louisville may have jumped the gun.

Any time a program is penalized there is bound to be some collateral damage – players who did nothing to deserve being punished, but yet are caught in the wide net cast out by investigations; internal, NCAA or otherwise. In many cases, there’s simply nothing that can be done to protect the innocent, however certain rules do give players an out.

In the case of the NCAA Tournament, the rules state that rising seniors and graduates with eligibility remaining are allowed to transfer if their school is facing a ban from the Big Dance the following year. It’s a fair rule, and as long as the players in question weren’t the offending parties, it makes sense.

For whatever insane reason, the powers at Louisville decided to go ahead and self-impose their sentence for this season, meaning players who are out of eligibility after this season will miss their one last (or only) shot at an NCAA Tournament appearance.

Such is the case for graduate transfers Trey Lewis and Damion Lee, who left their respective programs (Cleveland State and Drexel) after last season to play their final year of eligibility out at Louisville. For these two young men, 2016 was their final chance to be part of an NCAA Tournament. Now, that chance is completely blown to pieces by past goings on at a school where they were not even enrolled.

Feb 6, 2016; Louisville, KY, USA; Louisville Cardinals guard Damion Lee (0) and Louisville Cardinals guard Trey Lewis (3) Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports /

Here we have a program doused in shame in the wake of Katrina Powell’s allegations in the book Breaking Cardinal Rules, that she and other women were paid impressive sums of money by former Louisville staffer Andre McGee to have sex with recruits. Add to that a school president who thinks so little of two student-athletes who chose his school over countless others so that he can preserve chances of retaining some key underclassmen and future recruits.

Not a good look, Louisville.

Lewis and Lee paid their dues, scrapped and studied in some smaller programs, and made their way to a tournament favorite only to be discarded by the shortsightedness of Louisville president James Ramsey.

The sad part is that it didn’t have to be this way. Even if Louisville’s empty suits knew that a postseason ban was inevitable, they could have waited until….oh, I don’t know…May, possibly? Would a couple of months more really have damaged Louisville’s reputation anymore than it already was? The NCAA investigation is still ongoing, and it’s doubtful any resolution would have been achieved by tournament time.

More busting brackets: Busting Bracketology for 2016 Tourney

This was merely a case of a school’s leadership trying to save face rather than examine how their decisions (again) would affect the young men who essentially work to pay their salaries. The decision to look “decisive” (as put so eloquently by Louisville attorney Chuck Smrt), or to be “proactive” (as praised by ACC commissioner John Swofford) rather than to appear compassionate and humane.