Louisville title at risk in escort scandal
LOUISVILLE, KY.— The NCAA has suspended Louisville’s men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino for five Atlantic Coast Conference games following its sex scandal investigation.
The governing body also Thursday placed the basketball program on four years’ probation, vacated wins in which ineligible players participated and handed down a 10-year show-cause order for former basketball operations director Andre McGee.
It is unclear if the vacated wins will include the Cardinals’ 2013 national championship.
The long-awaited announcement reiterated the NCAA’s original view that Pitino should have known about McGee’s activities with former escort Katina Powell, who alleged in a 2015 book that staff McGee had hired her and other escorts to strip for and have sex with Louisville recruits and players.
The NCAA’s release included statements by the panel on its decision, which said: “The types of activities that occurred in this case were repugnant and threaten the integrity of the NCAA Collegiate Model, regardless.”
The NCAA also said, “Without dispute, NCAA rules do not allow institutional staff members to arrange for stripteases and sex acts for prospects, enrolled student-athletes and/ or those who accompany them to campus.”
Penalties prescribed by the panel also include men’s basketball scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions; a fine of $5,000, plus the university must return money received through conference revenue sharing for its appearances in the 2012 to 2015 NCAA men’s basketball championships.
The panel also accepted the university’s self-imposed 2015-16 postseason ban.
Powell alleged that McGee paid her $10,000 for 22 shows at the Cardinals’ dormitory from 2010-14, a period that includes their NCAA title run.
The panel also had harsh comments about McGee’s actions in its decision. “NCAA members agree that schools must provide a safe, healthy and positive environment for their student-athletes, not only academically, but in all facets of their lives,” said the panel. “The former operations director, the individual entrusted to keep order at Minardi Hall, created an environment that has no place on a college campus and was directly at odds with college athletics and higher education.”
Louisville and Pitino had denied the allegation that the hall of fame coach had faield to monitor McGee, but the NCAA disagreed.
“He essentially placed a peer of the student-athletes in a position of authority over them and visiting prospects and assumed that all would behave appropriately in an environment that was, for all practical purposes, a basketball dormitory,” the report said.