Fansided

Louisville fires Rick Pitino amid Brian Bowen allegations

By Chris Stone

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MARCH 19: Head coach Rick Pitino of the Louisville Cardinals looks on in the first half against the Michigan Wolverines during the second round of the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse on March 19, 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MARCH 19: Head coach Rick Pitino of the Louisville Cardinals looks on in the first half against the Michigan Wolverines during the second round of the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse on March 19, 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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Louisville head coach Rick Pitino has been fired, further complicating the legacy he’ll leave behind.

The Louisville Cardinals announced at a press conference today that they will part ways with head men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino just one day after the school was implicated in an indictment filed in the Southern District of New York targeting the recruitment of college basketball players. Because of a clause in his contract, Pitino will officially be put on leave for 10 days, and then terminated.

The indictment, filed against Adidas’ director of global sports marketing for basketball Jim Gatto and others, alleges that the sportswear company funneled $100,000 to the family of 5-star recruit Brian Bowen in order to lure him to Louisville and although it does not specifically name the school, any member of the coaching staff or Bowen, the Cardinals’ administration confirmed they are under investigation.

Pitino’s words following the commitment of Bowen have a particular irony about them now. Referencing Bowen and his family, the head coach said, “They had to come in unofficially, pay for their hotel, pay for their meals. We spent zero dollars recruiting a 5-star athlete who I love when I saw him play. In my 40 years of coaching, this is the luckiest I’ve been.”

It seems luck ran out for the Hall of Famer.

Pitino’s firing comes just a few months after the NCAA leveling sanctions against the program because it was found to have held parties with exotic dancers for recruits and players funded by a former program staff member. In addition to having the Cardinals’ 2013 national title stripped away, the head coach himself was set to be suspended for the first five Atlantic Coast Conference games of the 2017-18 season as a punishment for failure to monitor.

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Although it’s impossible to be certain, Louisville’s decision to fire Pitino certainly feels like an attempt to garner some semblance of leniency with the NCAA given that the sport’s governing body has yet to conduct its own investigation of the events alleged in the aforementioned complaint. It’s a move the school has used before. Back in 2016, Louisville announced a self-imposed postseason ban for the 2015-16 season in response to the exotic dancer recruiting scandal.

The federal government’s charges and the school’s presumed decision to part ways with Pitino obviously further complicate the legacy he’ll leave behind. The 65-year old is one of the sport’s most successful coaches in history. He is one of only 14 coaches with two or more college basketball titles on his resume and the only head coach to win them at two different schools, but this is not the first cloud to hang over his head.