Louisville basketball hit with NCAA Notice of Allegations
Yahoo Sports' Pete Thamel explains the Notice of Allegations that was sent to the Louisville athletic department on Monday and what it could mean for the future of the basketball program.
Video Transcript
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PETE THAMEL: This is Pete Thamel, senior college sports reporter with Yahoo Sports, with breaking news at the University of Louisville. The NCAA has given Louisville its Notice of Allegations tied to the Justice Department investigation into basketball's underbelly.
Louisville faces a level 1 allegation, which is the stiffest that the NCAA can give. And there's also three level 2 violations tied to the case. One of those level 2 violations is for former coach Rick Pitino, now the head coach at Iona. And That. Says that Pitino did not satisfy his head coach responsibility when he failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance.
When you cut through all the jargon and NCAA speak today, this is bad news for both Louisville and Pitino. Louisville is facing a potential postseason ban, depending on whether the Committee on Infractions upholds the violations and whether they find them aggravated or mitigated or standard. There are six aggravating factors.
Because of Louisville's rich history with NCAA violations, that includes the stripper scandal from Pitino's era that cost Louisville its 2013 national title. Louisville athletic director Vince Tyra, today, made clear that Louisville is not going to self-impose sanctions and is going to fight them. Tyra trotted out all the typical bromides about how Louisville is a standard of compliance and new coach Chris Mack has transformed Louisville in terms of following NCAA rules.
But the ghost of what Pitino left behind, the recruitment of Brian Bowen, and the specter of other Louisville scandals lead to Louisville facing significant punishment from this latest Notice of Allegations. Louisville has 90 days to respond to the notice. And a punishment, depending on which route Louisville takes, whether it's the Committee on Infractions or the new Complex Case Unit, we likely won't know the answer until how stiff the punishment is for Louisville for about a calendar year.
Stay tuned here at Yahoo Sports. We'll keep you updated with the latest on the Louisville situation.