Dick Vitale defended Rick Pitino after reading his new memoir

Rick Pitino’s memoir is set to drop next month, and the former Louisville coach is expected to “lay all his cards on the table.”

The book, titled “Pitino: My Story,” reportedly will cover not only the massive scandal that forced Pitino out of a job at Louisville, but also his time coaching in the NBA. He will take on an “opportunistic agents and predatory apparel companies,” too.

While the book hasn’t hit stores yet, it seems one prominent basketball analyst enjoyed it — and now has a positive opinion of Pitino himself after the read, too.

Longtime college basketball analyst Dick Vitale received an advanced copy of the book and tweeted out a picture of him with it on Sunday night — singing its praises in his strange, yet unique, style of tweeting.

“Hot off the press,” Vitale wrote. “Get the TRUTH about the hoops scandal. A key fact, Rick Pitino and no one on his staff were indicted like many others yet he gets fired. Read what he says and I believe if you were a naysayer you might change your feelings. A super READ!”

Pitino, remember, was fired from Louisville in 2017 after a massive investigation revealed Pitino’s involvement in a pay-for-play scheme where he helped funnel money to recruits to come play for him. He also knew of a former staffer who paid women to help entertain recruits with stripteases and sexual acts. The school has since vacated its 2013 National Championship, its 2012 Final Four appearance and instituted a one-year postseason ban on itself as a result of the investigations.

Pitino has denied any wrongdoing during his time at Louisville.

While it may be “a super read,” it’s a weird look for Vitale — who has been around the game of basketball nearly his entire life — to side with and defend Pitino simply after reading his memoir.

Even if Pitino really didn’t know about the money being funneled to recruits or about the parties his assistant arranged as he claims, he’s still at fault for being clueless about what was going on in his own program. Just because he wasn’t indicted, as Vitale pointed out, doesn’t mean he’s completely innocent. Louisville did violate NCAA rules under his watch.

In Vitale’s defense, however, the book has yet to be released to the public. There’s no way to know what’s in it.

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