Pitino's lawyer calls NCAA findings weak

On Thursday, the NCAA Committee on Infractions released its prescribed punishment for Rick Pitino and the Louisville basketball program. Rick Pitino's lawyer had a quick response.

"The finding against Coach Pitino is one of the weakest I’ve ever seen against a head coach," Attorney Scott Tompsett wrote in a statement released on behalf of Coach Pitino. "The original allegation was that Coach Pitino failed to monitor by not actively looking for and evaluating red flags. But throughout the entire investigation and the nearly twelve-hour hearing before the Committee on Infractions, not once did either the enforcement staff or the Committee ever identify a single red flag. And today’s decision does not mention the phrase “red flag” a single time.

"Instead, the decision hinges on a vaguely-worded rationale about creating an environment in which the violations eventually occurred, alleged delegating of monitoring to assistant coaches and Coach Pitino’s failure to train Mr. McGee."

Tompsett and Pitino argue that Pitino put in place safeguards to check McGee's behavior, but that McGee and others actively worked to remove any hint of impropriety and made sure Pitino didn't find out about McGee's activities.

"But the decision does not identify a single specific thing that Coach Pitino should have done, that he wasn’t already doing, that would have either prevented or detected the illicit activities," Tompsett wrote. "The secret and deliberately hidden illicit activities certainly did not occur because Coach Pitino did not properly train Mr. McGee."

Pitino was suspended for Louisville's first five ACC games in the 2017-18 season.

"Today’s decision breaks with established head coach control precedent and imposes a standard of strict liability," Tompsett wrote. "Coach Pitino intends to exercise his right to appeal the finding and the penalty."