NCAA suspends Rick Pitino for five ACC games for failure to monitor
The NCAA suspended University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino for five Atlantic Coast Conference games and former staffer Andre McGee was hit with a 10-year show cause penalty after the NCAA said Pitino failed to monitor McGee, a former director of basketball operations at Louisville..
The NCAA investigated the program after a woman alleged that a former Cardinals men's basketball staffer hired strippers for sex parties with players and recruits and subsequently charged the school with four Level 1 violations including one against Pitino.
The penalties also include four years of probation for the university, men's basketball scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions and a fine of $5,000.
Pitino was accused of not noticing red flags in the activities of Andre McGee, a former director of basketball operations at Louisville.
"Pitino failed to demonstrate that he actively looked for red flags, asked pointed questions or even occasionally solicited honest feedback from McGee about activities occurring under his supervision," the NCAA said in denying Pitino's defense.
The probe started after Katina Powell said in her book "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen," that McGee paid $10,000 for her and other dancers to perform for players at the team's dormitory over a five-year period beginning in 2010.
Pitino denied having any knowledge of the activities described in Powell's book with the school saying Pitino "fostered a culture" of compliance within NCAA rules.
Louisville agreed with the NCAA in its response to the Notice of Allegations in January that impermissible benefits took place on 37 of 40 alleged instances.
The school's own investigation into the allegations resulted in a self-imposed postseason ban after the 2015–2016 season, even though the team was ranked in the Top 20 for the majority of the season and would have likely received an NCAA tournament bid.
