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Rick Pitino Calls Ironic Press Conference to Tell the Fans There’s Nothing to See Here

Aug 26, 2009, 7:40 PM UTC

Rick Pitino is a public relations mastermind. Clearly, he’s operating on a level that we can’t begin to comprehend. That’s the only possible explanation I’ve got for what I just watched from Pitino. Today’s impromptu news conference was some combination of defiant, angry and bizarre.â†µThis whole thing starts with a whole “shame on you, media” bit from Pitino:â†µâ†µâ‡¥But I don’t understand is why you keep fostering this behavior on a day where Ted Kennedy died, we broke in the news here in Louisville we broke in with Karen Sypher’s audio and the tapes and detectives. That’s pretty sad commentary on us.â†µâ†µâ†µOK ... except the tapes were just released. The only comments to this point were from the New York Post interview. Furthermore, if I’m Pitino, I might even be a little relieved, because Part 4 of those tapes released today features Metro Police basically telling Karen Sypher why they aren’t going forward with this.â†µ

â†µâ†µAlso, did he just drop Ted Kennedy? Talk about a great non sequitur. That’s kind of like Walter Sobchak comparing everything to Vietnam in The Big Lebowski. â†µ

â†µâ†µBut anyway, he moved on to rally his base at Louisville:â†µ

â†µ

â†µâ‡¥We need to get on with the important things in life like the economy and really some crucial things in life like basketball [Ed. note: Joking about hoops, obviously.]. I'm asking any university fans that, if you put this on the news anymore, if you're just fans of anything we've accomplished that's good, just change the channel. If the newspapers want to write it, just read something else.â†µ

â†µâ†µAnd then ... well, I’m not sure what the hell he meant by this:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥All I did was stand up to a long laundry list of people who passed away today who couldn’t stand up because what was done was wrong.â†µâ†µ

â†µWhat's he saying here? He's standing up to dead people? Is he saying Karen Sypher killed Ted Kennedy? Finally, after going all Sarah Palin on us with that gem, he gave us a walk-off quote.â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥The FBI and the US Attorney’s office don’t go after jaywalkers. â†µâ†µâ†µBOOM! Roasted.â†µ

â†µâ†µSo yeah, this bizarre and completely unnecessary presser will certainly go a long way toward Rick Pitino’s goal of not having anyone talk about this today or again any time soon.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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