Louisville coach Rick Pitino has chimed in on the recent decommitment of shooting guard Antonio Blakeney, which has been linked to the fact that Louisville is an adidas program and Blakeney plays for a Nike AAU team.
“I don’t like not being able to recruit” a kid because of their shoe affiliation, Pitino said, according to Jeff Greer of the Louisville Courier-Journal. “We need to get shoe companies out of their lives”
Pitino isn’t permitted to comment on recruitable student-athletes so he was ostensibly speaking generally.
“I’m not talking about a specific case that just happened to us,” he said. “I’m saying in the last five years” things have changed.
Pitino recruited Blakeney at the Nike-sponsored Peach Jam, among other events, watching him several times there, as did other high-major coaches.
The 6-foot-4 Blakeney initially committed to Louisville Sept. 4.
He then reversed his decision, telling ESPN’s Reggie Rankin: “I made a quick and emotional decision based on some of the wrong reasons. I really loved my visit and everything about Louisville and I am still strongly considering them.”
After Tweets by Jerry Meyer of 247Sports linked the decommitment to shoe company affiliation, Bleacher Report wrote a story on the topic.
“I guess I just take it for granted that it’s highly shoe company driven,” Meyer told Bleacher Report. “With the elite guys, it’s agents/shoe company drive. I guess I just take that for granted. I didn’t think my tweets were any big deal.”
Louisville then made it known that it was no longer recruiting Blakeney, and opted to pursue other players at that position.
Pitino conceded Thursday that “our pool shrinks” because AAU coaches fear losing their Nike sponsorships if they send a kid to an adidas school.
“Our pool shrinks,” Pitino said. “But in the last few years we’re having some of the best recruiting classes that we’ve had.”
He added: “A coach knows if a kid goes to an Adidas school, he may not get renewed by another shoe company. Nobody wants to talk about that.”
Louisville in April signed a five-year, $39-million deal with adidas, Greer reported.
Blakeney is now considering several Nike-sponsored schools, including Kentucky, Missouri (where he will visit this weekend) and LSU.
“The reason I never knock Kentucky is I have too much respect for the players I coached there,” Pitino said.
He also said that coaches of Nike-sponsored schools would likely disagree with what he had to say.
“I’m sure the Nike coaches don’t feel that way because they are winning the battle right now,” Pitino said, according to Evan Daniels.
