College Basketball: Rick Pitino officially out at Louisville
By Taylor Sturm
Rick Pitino is no longer the head coach of the Louisville Cardinals after an FBI investigation into bribery within college basketball.
The Louisville Cardinals were expected to be one of the top teams in college basketball during the 2017-18 season. With veteran talent, youth, and a great head coach, few thought that any scandal would turn all those expectations upside down.
Now, however, the Cardinals could be in for a downward spiral after the loss of their coach.
At the forefront of an FBI investigation that has (so far) led to 10 arrests, longtime Cardinals’ head coach Rick Pitino is no longer at the helm of Louisville.
The National Championship winning coach is out of the program after an FBI investigation charged several assistant coaches across college basketball and an Adidas exec as part of a major pay-to-play and bribery scandal.
According to sources, Tom Jurich was asked to fire Rick Pitino, refused, both were fired
— Kent Taylor (@KentTaylorTV) September 27, 2017
Reports are that top Louisville Class of 2017 commit Brian Bowen and his family received over $100,000 funneled to them in order to choose Louisville as his college basketball destination. An Adidas exec is at the center of this scandal, and Louisville is an Adidas school.
Pitino was just coming away from an escort scandal in which the NCAA charged Pitino with lack of institutional control, and a second scandal this soon was the end of him – even if he truly had no idea what was happening behind the scenes.
Will Pitino’s legacy be tarnished? For now, it most certainly will be.
But will it be forever? I highly doubt that. College basketball has a way of forgetting, especially when it comes to coaches who have won as much as Pitino.