One Shining Moment Dims for Louisville Hoops
- Brad Zellner
- Feb 6, 2016
- 4 min read
The University of Louisville men's basketball is having a great year on the court. As the season winds down, the Cards are one of the top teams in the ACC and and getting ready to prepare for a deep run into March Madness. Rick Pitino always has teams ready to play their best basketball at the end of the year and this team is no different. They have a young team with 2 senior transfers. Damion Lee and Trey Lewis graduated early and, by NCAA rules, were able to transfer to Louisville to play a final season of eligibility. These 2 seniors have never sniffed the NCAA tournament at their previous schools and were really looking forward to "Dancing in March" for the first time.
All those dreams came to a crushing end when the President of the University, Dr. James Ramsey, announced the school was self imposing a post season ban for this season's basketball team. The reason for the ban stems from potential recruiting violations that are levied by Katrina Powell. Powell is a former prostitute who alleges she threw recruiting parties for potential basketball players in the dorms on the University of Louisville campus (click here to read more about the allegations).
The University of Lousille announced the one year post season ban during a press conference with 4 men being made available to the media. Coach Pitino and Dr. Ramsey was joined by Athletic Director, Tom Jurich, and Chuck Smrt. Smrt is the private investigator hired by the university to investigate the claims made by Powell. None of the findings of the private investigation could not be talked about during the press conference because the NCAA has not completed the work on their end. That brings me to the first problem with the ban for this season. NCAA schools have often been proactive when it comes to trying to soften the blow from the NCAA. The difference between many of those schools and Louisville's situation is that the NCAA published the findings of the other schools. Lousiville is basing all of their information from the findings of the private investigator.
A few things come to mind as Louisville tries to be proactive.
Why did Tom Jurich decide to place the program on a post season ban so early in the NCAA process? It would most likely be another year before the NCAA handed down their very own sanctions. This season would be long gone and another one almost complete. Two young men would get to experience March Madness for the first time and create many memories.
How severe are the findings from the private investigation? Since none of the findings were discussed during the press conference, nobody in the general public know what they are. I speculate that the findings are more severe than ever anticipated. For this type of action to be taken by the school tells me that things wil not be good when the NCAA completes the process.
Is this a power play by administration? Pitino talked about how much he loves this team and what a great group they are to be around. Pitino has also had his fair share of controversy during his tenure as head coach. By banning this team from the post season, the powers that be goes right after the team that the Head Coach loves so much. Such a move could cause an individual to re-think his current position and feel it might be time to move on. Rick Pitino has already been linked to the current head coach opening at UNLV (read the story here).
When Pitino addressed the media during the press conference he talked about Lee and Lewis not having the chance to enjoy a deep tournament run. Also, he told the entire fan base they had a responsibility to rally around these two seniors and the rest of the team. It seems to be this is the only time the current individual players were ever thought of when making this decision. By banning this team from the post season just proves the University of Louisville is not a student first institution. Administration is tryng to cover themselves by showing they are tough when dealing with violations. Trust me, if the findings are bad, people are going to forget about this post season ban when the NCAA makes their ruling.
It would have been great for the Jurich and Ramsey to set a new precedent for dealing with NCAA violations instead of doing what seems to be the norm. This would have been a great opportunity for Louisville to set a new standard that would be hard to ignore by the NCAA. Pitino spoke about going after coaches and fining them for illegal actions in the program. I am sure there is a great charity the school could donate a portion of Pitino's salary to. Maybe take away a couple scholarships for the next couple years. The amount of scholarship money should also be donated to a charity. That would be a great way to turn a negative into a positive. I am sure the media would not mind reporting a story about people who benefited from the donations. As it stands right now, there is not going to be anything positive once the situation is sorted out.
Besides the team, the group who will suffer are the fans. Fans are the ones who buy the tickets and travel to watch games. They will have no say in anything that occurs during the process. The only way for fans to make an impact is to protest by not spending money on the team or show up to games. I do think it was a great public relations move for Pitino to tell the fans to rally around the team and give them great support for the reaminder of the season. There has been a petition started by a fan to protest the post season ban by Louisiville (Click here to sign the petition).
Everyone involved in this scandal will survive. Pitino will more than likely move on to another school in the near future and face some sort of suspension from the NCAA. Jurich and Ramsey will continue to run the university and bring in millions of dollars. Damion Lee and Trey Lewis will never get a March Madness but hopefully the city of Louisville will support them more than any other champion in school history. Giving the two seniors some great memories to remember for a long time.
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