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On Friday, Feb. 5, University of Louisville president Dr. James Ramsey announced the university would self-impose a one-year postseason ban for its men’s basketball team, and the Cardinals would not play in the 2016 Atlantic Coast Conference or NCAA tournaments. Ramsey said U of L’s investigative committee, based on regular updates from consultant Chuck Smrt, “determined that it was reasonable to conclude that violations had occurred in the men’s basketball program in the past.”
Smrt, a former NCAA investigator, said, “When a school takes action while the inquiry is ongoing, it shows decisiveness. It shows the integrity of the institution. We’re bound by NCAA bylaws [as to] what can be said.”
Clearly irked by a decision into which he had no input, head coach Rick Pitino chose his words carefully. “This is a team that was very much favored to go very far in the tournament, so this penalty is quite substantial,” Pitino said. “It comes as a complete shock to me.” Both Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich said that pursuant to NCAA bylaws, they were kept uninformed of any specifics of the investigation.
Since August, Smrt and NCAA enforcement staff have been probing allegations made in Breaking Cardinal Rules: Louisville Basketball and the Escort Queen, a book written by self-styled Louisville “madam” Katina Powell with former Indianapolis Star investigative reporter Dick Cady. In the book, Powell alleges former U of L staffer Andre McGee paid her $10,000 between 2010 and 2014 to put on exotic dancing and sex parties for recruits in Billy Minardi Hall, the men’s basketball dormitory.
Dr. Ramsey, it seems, has contracted a severe case of premature capitulation.
The NCAA Committee on Infractions has not yet sent U of L a Notice of Allegations, which would in normal course be followed by the university crafting a response to the allegations and attending a hearing before the committee. This process normally consumes several months.
The decision to ban the Cards, currently 19-4 (8-2 ACC, tied for first) and ranked 19th in the Associated Press poll, from postseason play, came one year and a day after Syracuse University announced a similar decision. However, in February 2015 Syracuse already had appeared before the Committee on Infractions, and the Orange men’s basketball team gave up a postseason they figured to miss anyway. This Louisville team looked poised to make a deep tournament run, so this penalty hits harder than it ordinarily might.
On the one hand, this decision could be spun as showcasing Ramsey as a man of principle, sacrificing a brilliant season to win possible leniency from the NCAA. On the other hand, it appears part of a campaign by the president to appease some members of the university’s Board of Trustees and save his own butt. It is also a sop to those voices found on every campus who view athletics as a giant waste of time and resources, regardless of how much money the U of L Athletic Association pours into the school’s general fund every year.
It also throws two talented basketball players, and by all accounts exemplary individuals, under the bus for nebulous reasons. Smrt cited “the integrity of the institution” as a justification for Ramsey’s actions — but what of U of L’s integrity in how it treats its student-athletes?
Damion Lee (from Drexel) and Trey Lewis (Cleveland State) left their respective mid-major programs for an opportunity to play one season at the college game’s highest level. Both had other suitors from the top echelon of Division I, but chose Louisville for its unique atmosphere and a chance to experience the Big Dance, perhaps even a Final Four. Almost from the moment they first reached campus in July 2015, the two found acceptance as leaders of a team that had lost 84 percent of its scoring to graduation and/or the NBA draft. Lee and Lewis (nicknamed the L Brothers) also became instant fan favorites.
Damion Lee (above), Trey Lewis
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Now Ramsey’s decision has ripped out their hearts and quashed the main reason they chose U of L. Their college careers will inexorably end with the final buzzer on March 6 at Virginia. This egregiously broken promise stands out as sickening collateral damage.
Some have theorized Ramsey also was trying to get out in front of the story, gaining some traction in the town square of public opinion for meeting this challenge head-on. First returns suggested the attempt failed, as most commentators seemed to view it as indicating U of L was running scared.
The decision also brought out social media trolls from everywhere, not just the usual suspects from Big Blue Nation. ESPN’s Dan Dakich posted (and quickly deleted) a snarky tweet suggesting U of L’s postseason ban served as karmic retribution against Lee and Lewis for deserting their former programs. Earlier, when the Breaking Cardinal Rules allegations first surfaced, Dakich led a chorus howling for Pitino’s head, so he already has done little to endear himself to Planet Red.
In view of Ramsey’s decision to pull the plug on this year’s postseason, many observers, including ESPN’s Dana O’Neil and Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Tim Sullivan, raised the possibility of more NCAA sanctions regardless of U of L’s action. Meanwhile, one might hear snickering coming from Chapel Hill, where despite substantial evidence of nearly two decades of systemic academic fraud, North Carolina has bobbed, weaved and obfuscated its way to dodging any kind of NCAA punishment for nearly five years.
A reminder: what Powell wrote about allegedly took place between 2010 and 2014. Exactly one current Cardinal, injured center Mangok Mathiang, was on the team at that time, and Powell mentions him only in passing and does not accuse him of participating in any of her “parties.” The rest of the team arrived at U of L within the last two years. Only one named recruit, Ohio State’s JaQuan Lyle, has come close to publicly confirming “the gist” of the allegations, according to an unnamed source close to the NCAA investigation.
In addition, during the beginning of that time frame, Pitino was embroiled in a highly publicized controversy over his one-time dalliance with Karen Sypher, currently serving a sentence for perjury in a federal prison in Florida. That further supports the conclusion Pitino knew nothing of any sex parties in Minardi Hall, named after Pitino’s brother-in-law who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The one person who can indisputably confirm or refute Powell’s allegations, McGee, has lawyered up and said nothing. Moreover, since McGee no longer works at an NCAA member institution, the Committee on Infractions, which lacks subpoena power, cannot compel him to appear.
Powell’s attorney, Larry Wilder, said his client viewed Ramsey’s announcement as “vindication.” Meanwhile, his client still faces a lawsuit from about a dozen parties, including five women whose stage names and pictures appear in the book. The women allege Powell used their names and likenesses without permission, and all denied having sex with recruits or players. One added she had never set foot inside Minardi Hall.
Admittedly, the NCAA does not employ the same standard of proof as a court of law, but it seems disingenuous and cruel for Ramsey to capitulate before the Committee on Infraction has even presented U of L with an official Letter of Inquiry or Notice of Allegations. By way of comparison, North Carolina received those documents a year after its first contact from the NCAA; a similar timetable would indicate Louisville receiving them sometime this summer.
The bottom line? Ramsey legitimately could have waited until after the NCAA championship game to announce the ban, effective in the 2017 postseason, instead of selling out Lee, Lewis and their teammates. Doing so now appears unfairly callous and fainthearted.
In short, it’s just flat wrong.
UPDATE: In his postgame press conference after Louisville’s 79-47 pasting of Boston College on Feb. 6, Pitino defended Ramsey, saying the actual decision was Jurich’s, in consultation with Ramsey.
“As much as Dr. Ramsey’s taking a lot of heat right now, please don’t give him the heat,” Pitino said. “He’s taken enough heat from enough places. He doesn’t need this heat, because he’s done a lot of great things for this university, a lot of tremendous things for our university.”
