Louisville just self-imposed a postseason ban this past week for the upcoming ACC and NCAA Tournament this year. Many people felt that athletic director Tom Jurich was too hasty in his decision to self-impose the ban because of the two graduate transfers currently playing ball for Pitino —- Damion Lee and Trey Lewis —- now won't be able to showcase their talents for an extra few weeks and possibly move up the draft boards for the NBA Draft.
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Coach Pitino was especially against this decision from Jurich and came up with a few other scenarios that would have been more acceptable than barring these young men from competition right when they need it most.
https://twitter.com/rickbozich/status/696051389080870912
Pitino: “We should be penalized, no question about it. But not this team. But the NCAA didn’t make that decision. We made that decision."
— Eric Crawford (@ericcrawford) February 6, 2016
Pitino: "It's the NCAA's system" that's wrong. U of L "should be penalized," but not this current team.
— Jeff Greer (@jeffgreer) February 6, 2016
One year postseason bans are a fairly common practice in NCAA basketball for teams trying to "self-police" and not have the NCAA come down too hard on them after violations. Pitino also wanted the fans not to get mad at the university president since he didn't ultimately make the decision.
Pitino asks Louisville fans to lay off James Ramsey, saying the school president "doesn't deserve" heat.
— Jeff Greer (@jeffgreer) February 6, 2016
The problem is finding an appropriate punishment for those involved. Do wins get vacated? Does Pitino lose his salary for a period of time? It's not exactly a good look for Pitino to be criticizing the NCAA and his own administration though.
[h/t CollegeSpun]
