(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
On Tuesday, the NCAA appeals panel laid the hammer down once again as they upheld its decision regarding the Louisville Men’s Basketball team sex scandal, stripping the program of its 2013 National Championship as well as 123 victories and around $600,000 in conference revenues.
The men’s basketball team and its former coach Rick Pitino were involved in a sex scandal in 2015 in which former player and head of basketball operations Andre McGee gave improper benefits to prospective Louisville players. These benefits including stripteases as well as sex acts for these prospects as well as current Louisville players. Following these allegations, the NCAA voted to suspend Pitino for five games (Pitino is no longer the head coach following his involvement in another scandal), they also imposed a four-year probation on the program and vacated the aforementioned 123 wins and its 2013 title.
Louisville interim President Dr. Greg Postel said the following in a statement:
“From Day One, the university has admitted that the actions of the former operations director and any others involved under previous leadership were offensive and inexcusable…That is why we apologized immediately, cooperated fully with the NCAA, self-imposed penalties that were appropriate to the offenses and made significant changes to ensure incidents like this never happen again.”
You can read the full statement here.
It is important to note that this ruling has no effect on the current NCAA investigation into the current men’s basketball corruption scandal, in which Louisville is also involved. Louisville and a number of other schools have been accused of providing goods from Adidas to prospective players. This investigation is ongoing, so it remains to be seen what will happen as a result of these allegations.
No word yet on whether or not Pitino will be removing his now-famous tattoo following Tuesday’s ruling.
