Rick Pitino has filed a federal lawsuit against Adidas in regards to the recent FBI investigation into college basketball.
Former Louisville Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino has filed a federal lawsuit against apparel company Adidas, Jay Bilas of ESPN was first to report on Tuesday. In the lawsuit, Pitino’s lawyer alleges the former Cardinals head coach had no idea of the company’s involvement in luring a five-star recruit to the program with $100,000.
Pitino is currently placed on unpaid administrative leave from the program, and the Board of Regents for the school recently voted to have the legendary coach fired from the position. As we know, Adidas allegedly used $100,000 in payments to get five-star prospect Brian Bowen to commit to the school, which tied Pitino directly into everything that’s allegedly been happening in the sport.
Despite being placed on leave, Pitino has been adamant from the beginning that he knew of no wrongdoing, which has, of course, rubbed some people the wrong way. The logical argument here is to call it a bit foolish that Pitino knew none of this was going on right under his nose, as generally nothing happens in his program without him knowing about it. Still, he’s apparently going to ride his side of the story out until the very end, as his taking this to federal court pretty much validates.
Today, Rick Pitino has filed suit against Adidas America, Inc. and Adidas N. America, Inc. in U.S. District Court, W. District of Kentucky.
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) October 17, 2017
There’s still a long way to go with all of this but it’ll be interesting to watch how it all plays out, especially with Pitino not giving in whatsoever to the allegations.
When it was revealed last month the FBI had been investigating college basketball for quite some time now, it was said this was only the beginning; there were many more chapters in this saga still to come. Well, Pitino filing a federal lawsuit against Adidas is one of the latest chapters.