Former Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino urged the university Wednesday to fight the "unjust" NCAA ruling that vacated the Cardinals' 2013 national title.
"To say I'm disappointed with the NCAA appeals ruling would be a gross understatement," Pitino said in a news conference Wednesday afternoon in New York. "I hope Louisville will not give up its fight and follow suit by taking this injustice to the courts and filing an injunction for that banner not to come down."
Pitino acknowledged poor judgment was used by a few players participating in sex parties organized by one of his assistants, but he maintained Louisville's argument in its appeal, that those incidents, while salacious and wrong, should not have affected those players' eligibility.
"Did a few of them partake in parties they didn't organize? Yes they did," Pitino said. "But that had nothing to do with an extra benefit, nothing to do with helping their eligibility or performance in winning that championship. My heart is broken and shattered for them, our fans and a great university ...
"The NCAA cannot rewrite history by taking a banner down. Our players won those games by outplaying outstanding opponents. And to say I'm proud would also be an understatement."
On Tuesday at a news conference in response to the NCAA appeals ruling, interim University of Louisville president Gregory Postel said the school would not pursue any further action to fight the sanctions.
Pitino, fired in October in a separate matter, said his players from each of the years in which wins were vacated earned those victories and should not be punished to the extent that they were by the NCAA.
Pitino has consistently argued that he did not know of assistant Andre McGee's alleged activities in organizing the sex parties with a Louisville escort service run by Katina Powell. And he maintained the team should not be held accountable for an assistant's bad acts.
Pitino has also maintained that stance in the FBI case that led to his dismissal from Louisville. Indictments in the FBI's investigation into alleged corruption in college basketball, released last September, implicated Louisville, but did not name Pitino.
The sanctions eliminate 123 wins and a national title from Pitino's coaching career. The coach had ranked 24th on the NCAA's all-time Division I wins list with 770 victories at five schools _ Hawaii, Boston University, Providence, Kentucky and Louisville. Subtracting the vacated games at Louisville would give him 647 wins, tying him for 37 on the all-time list with longtime UAB coach Gene Bartow.
