Louisville announces self-imposed postseason ban for men’s basketball

The NCAA has been conducting an investigation into the allegations.

Louisville has announced a one-year postseason ban for its men’s basketball team amid ongoing investigations into a sex scandal in which an escort alleged that a former staffer paid her and other dancers to strip and have sex with recruits and players.

Ramsey said after consulting with NCAA investigators, he determined violations had occurred. The inquiry was being led by the university and NCAA, Ramsey said in a statement.

The ban was imposed based on allegations from a book released past year that from 2010 to 2014 former Louisville director of basketball operations Andre McGee provided escorts for recruits. They’re the ones who will sit on their couches wondering what an NCAA tournament feels like, while their coach who’s been to 20 laments missing this year’s because he’s got a team he thinks would have made a deep run – and padded his Hall of Fame career. If done in the future, the program handicaps themselves in their recruiting efforts, having to go into homes of recruits and convincing them that playing in the postseason isn’t the best part of playing at a university like Louisville.

The team’s players received the news of the ban in a meeting held Friday afternoon. “We will be able to provide additional information surrounding the inquiry and this decision at its conclusion”.

Pitino said the team stood up and hugged graduate transfer guards Damion Lee and Trey Lewis, who came to Louisville to play their final college season and pursue their first NCAA Tournament bid.

“They were hit over the head with a sledgehammer”, Pitino said. While repeating that he could not provide any specifics from the findings of their investigation, Ramsey added that “we know that we have committed violations, and so we are taking this action”.

And we also know that Lee and Lewis had not thing to do with any of it. Yet they’re the ones who were used as sacrificial lambs at ACC media day in October, when Pitino backed out of facing questions.

“This is a punishment I thought would never happen this season”, he said.

“This is a decision that’s as harsh as anything I have seen”.

Pitino noted his history of leading the University of Kentucky basketball team back to prominence after it was put on probation in 1989, saying the fans kept supporting the team in trying times, and said that he hoped U of L’s fans do the same for the rest of this season, which will now end prematurely.

Pitino again repeated he was blindsided by the self-imposed penalty when Jurich informed him of it on Thursday.