HIT THE BENCH, PITINO
He's out as bribe probe eyes Nike
Damning bribery allegations in the NCAA basketball-recruiting scandal got Rick Pitino ousted as University of Louisville’s head coach Wednesday — as a report said the FBI now has Nike in its cross hairs.
Louisville President Greg Postel said Pitino was put on unpaid “administrative leave” and would be replaced on an interim basis by “someone with integrity . . . who can help move us along.”
Postel said he was “more angry than embarrassed” that the school — still reeling from a sex scandal involving Pitino’s team — faced “another stumbling block in where we want to get.”
Pitino, 65, a former Knicks head coach, refused to comment.
His contract requires 10 days’ notice before he can be canned, but his lawyer told the Louisville Courier-Journal that Pitino was “effectively fired.”
The attorney, Steve Pence, later said he didn’t know if Pitino was one of two unidentified Louisville coaches mentioned but not charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
“I can tell you for sure, Rick Pitino has done nothing wrong,” Pence told WDRB.
Just after Postel’s announcement, two top high-school players — Anfernee Simons of Orlando, Fla., and Courtney Ramey of St. Louis — backed out of their commitments to Louisville.
The 10 people charged Tuesday include four NCAA Division I assistant coaches and a top Adidas executive, who’s accused of using company funds to lure top highschool athletes to two companysponsored schools, including Louisville, and lock them into endorsement deals.
Court papers say a co-defendant, sports agent Christian Dawkins, was secretly recorded bragging, “If we take care of everybody and everything is done, we control everything . . . You can make millions off of one kid.”
The feds have promised there is more to come, and a report Wednesday said Nike had been slapped with subpoenas.
The FBI is scrutinizing Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball program, according to a Twitter post by sports lawyer and Forbes writer Darren Heitner, who on Tuesday was the first to report a raid on the ASM sports-management firm where Dawkins had worked.
Nike didn’t return an e-mail inquiry. The feds declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the University of Miami — which reports identified as the other school in the alleged recruiting scheme — confirmed the feds were investigating “a potential tie to one member
of our coaching staff and a student recruit.”
The burgeoning federal probe might have also swept up a former NCAA enforcement agent.
University of Alabama basketball administrator Kobie Baker resigned Wednesday after the school conducted an internal review of its hoops program.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Baker was once assistant director of enforcement at the NCAA and was the body’s associate director of amateurism certification.