Louisville coach Rick Pitino is not worried about any future NCAA penalties levied at him in the Katina Powell/sex scandal case.
“For the last 40 odd years, I’ve followed the letter of the NCAA law,” he told ESPN’s Dana O’Neill at ACC Media Day. “I will leave it to them to decide.”
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and former SMU coach Larry Brown were each suspended nine games last season because the NCAA said they failed to monitor the activities of those who reported to them.
“I don’t think they’re similar at all,” Pitino said on SportsCenter. “Not saying that ours is not severe and theirs is not severe, it’s just three different situations totally.”
Asked what type of penalty he might receive, Pitino said: “I have no idea. I’m not the judge and I’m not the jury. All I can do is make sure that…I believe in the the NCAA rules. We’re compliant. I have a long history of being compliant. I don’t want any shoes companies helping me out. I don’t want any agents helping me out. We do it the old-fashioned way, we work at it. And we made a mistake. we’re paying for our mistakes. We’re paying for it and we’re moving forward in a positive way.”
Louisville self-imposed sanctions in April, including a postseason ban for 2016 and the loss of two scholarships for this year.
“We’ve taken some real severe penalties…We were a team that could potentially go far in the NCAA Tournament. We took two scholarships off this year which is probably a mistake on my part,” Pitino said on SportsCenter. “If I had to do it over again, I wish I would’ve taken one this year and one next year. So the penalties were quite severe.”
Pitino has maintained he knew nothing about the goings on at Louisville, where Andre McGee allegedly arranged sex and stripper parties in the Billy Minardi dorm at Louisville for recruits and players.
“He’s a very bright, intelligent kid who played real hard and this was as big a shock to me as it was anybody who knew Andre,” Pitino said.
He added: “The day that Andre asks for forgiveness, we will certainly do that. He’s gotta ask for it and he’s gotta communicate with us. We would all like to know why and someday we’ll find out.”
Going forward he said he’s told his players to report anything unusual they see in the dorms or elsewhere.
“If you see something wrong, you must come to us right away,” Pitino said he tells his players. “If not me, an assistant coach.”
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