As far as the NCAA is concerned, Louisville only has one national championship in program history. That’s after a ruling by the organization’s appeals committee stripping four years of wins from the Cardinals — including the title-winning 2012-2013 campaign.
Louisville loses NCAA appeal and becomes the 1st men’s basketball program to have an NCAA banner taken down
The 2013 championship never happened, according to the NCAA. Rick Pitino says it’s ‘unjust.’
Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Louisville must vacate men’s basketball records in which student-athletes competed while ineligible during the 2011-12 through 2014-15 academic years according to a decision issued by the NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee. The appeals committee also upheld the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions penalty that requires the university to return to the NCAA money received through conference revenue sharing for its appearances in the 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championships.
What Did Louisville do?
This stems from the scandal within the program involving a former staffer organizing stripteases and sex acts for 20 prospects and student-athletes, many of whom were under the age of 18 at the time.
As is always the case when wins are vacated, the reality of the situation is that we all watched the Cardinals win the game. And even the NCAA’s shop acknowledged the title in the moments after the decision came down.
Rick Pitino says penalty is ‘unjust’
Pitino made his first public comments since Louisville’s appeal was denied on Wednesday afternoon in New York. The disgraced former coach said the NCAA’s ruling wasn’t fair.
“How do you take down a championship? They’ve earned it,” he said. “You need to get an injunction. The NCAA, they have total autonomy. I’m sure Notre Dame is not going to let it happen, and neither should the University of Louisville, in my opinion. I wish I could do it. Unfortunately, I’m defenseless.”
Pitino continued:
“Did a few of [the players] partake in parties they didn’t organize? Yes they did,” Pitino said. “But that had nothing to do with an extra benefit. That had nothing to do with helping their eligibility or performance in winning that championship.
”Those parties did not enhance our players’ ability to win a national championship or go to a Final Four.”
In another hilarious subplot, former coach Rick Pitino actually got a tattoo commemorating the achievement after promising he would. No word from the NCAA on whether they’ll be erasing that too.
Do you do tattoo removal? Would you do it for Rick Pitino if he came in and asked you to remove the tattoo?
Adam Potts: We don’t do tattoo removal. At all. On anybody. But we do do cover-ups, where we do a new tattoo essentially over the top of an existing tattoo so that you can’t see the existing tattoo anymore. We do those all the time. Usually have a lot of fun with them.
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