LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Rick Pitino is AP’s national coach of the year. It’s the kind of honor that says, officially, you’re back in the club.
But let’s be honest — it’s not the award that matters most.
No point in burying the lede: Rick Pitino should get his 2013 NCAA Championship back.
These are not political statements, just societal observations: We live in a country where you can be found guilty of 34 felonies and still be elected president. Where a disgraced New York governor can resign, then gear up to run for mayor of NYC. Where presidents of both parties hand out pardons like Halloween candy.
Pitino didn’t do as much wrong as any of those examples. Neither did the University of Louisville. Neither did the players on that 2013 team — or the teams before it, or after it.
So why are they held to a higher standard in a time when rehabilitation blooms faster than headlines fade?
In an age where redemption is practically a content category, why are Pitino and Louisville still serving a sentence the sport no longer even pretends to understand?
Reggie Bush got his Heisman back. The Houston Astros used an elaborate system to steal signs on their way to the 2017 World Series title. They still fly the banner. Will Wade brazenly broke the rules at LSU, got back in the game, made the NCAA Tournament, and now he’s headed to the ACC at N.C. State — a stone’s throw from Tobacco Road. He who is without infractions can cast the first one.
Don’t tell me sports are held to a higher standard. In sports, winning is absolution.
And Louisville and Pitino, upon further review, have paid enough.
I’ll admit to the court: my own opinion has evolved. At the time, I urged Louisville to take down the banner, drop the appeal, accept the punishment. When others criticized me for not urging a fight, I had one question: The fight for what?
The right to use strippers or prostitutes in recruiting?
I was there. I read Katina Powell’s book, reviewed her diaries, studied the details. If Pitino had orchestrated the operation, it would’ve been the only one he ever ran that was that disorganized.
Nobody — not the NCAA, not law enforcement, not any court or outside investigator — ever proved that Pitino or anyone else at U of L (beyond the players involved and assistant Andre McGee) knew what was happening.
So, I don’t believe they did. Maybe someday I’ll be proven wrong. But it hasn’t happened yet. Even the NCAA never claimed Pitino or the school knew. It punished them because it decided they should have known.
That kind of overreach has fallen out of favor, as the NCAA itself has been brought down to size in court. Years later, in a pay-for-play scandal uncovered by the FBI, an independent enforcement panel rejected the NCAA’s own logic, totally exonerated Pitino, and cast the university as a victim.
You can read the 105-page report. I won’t get into all of it here.
I was there when the championship was vacated. I remember when the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions called the allegations against Louisville “repugnant.” That’s why the banner came down — not because of competitive advantage, but because the NCAA wanted to make a moral statement, whether it had jurisdiction or not.
That’s all well and good — until you realize how selective that outrage has become.
Apparently now, a coach can be accused of sending unsolicited explicit photos to female students, and as long as the school clears it in private, he can coach a team to the Final Four. The NCAA stays quiet.
A program can funnel athletes through fake classes for years — and as long as the university says the courses were “real,” the NCAA goes along.
A player can ask a teammate to bring him a gun — a weapon used in a fatal campus shooting — and as long as he isn’t charged and the university stands behind him, he can still lead a team to the Elite Eight. The NCAA looks the other way.
Yet it’s Louisville that wears the scarlet letter? For what? For being good enough to win it all — in a season where the violations in question played no role in the outcome? Or maybe it was for being a little too cooperative with the NCAA.
Do I like all this? No. I know it reeks of whataboutism.
But what about virtually everywhere you turn in 2025? What about the fact that three of this year’s Final Four coaches have navigated some serious scandal or allegation?
And what about this: On Monday, the NCAA will finalize a $2.8 billion settlement with former players — essentially admitting it wrongfully blocked their access to NIL money. Among that group could be athletes the NCAA once deemed to have received “improper benefits” at Louisville. Now the NCAA could find itself paying them — more than the value of what they supposedly took.
For Louisville, some NCAA groundwork already has been laid. In 2019, Luke Hancock, Gorgui Dieng, Stephan Van Treese, Tim Henderson and Mike Marra sued the NCAA to restore their tournament records — including Hancock’s Most Outstanding Player award. The NCAA settled.
So in the matter of Louisville’s 2013 championship, the NCAA should follow its own example — and stand down.
We live, I’m afraid, in a post-rules world. For better or worse. And it’s certainly worse.
But we also live in a world where everyone gets a redemption arc. And that’s a good thing.
Louisville has earned one — through years in the basketball wilderness. It parted ways with Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich, at great cost — to its programs, its reputation, and its future. It has weathered dysfunction, bad press, and the slow rot of negative recruiting.
Only this year, in the 2024-25 season, did Pat Kelsey finally lead the program back to the NCAA Tournament.
And Pitino? He went to Greece to seek healing through basketball. Then to Iona. Then to St. John’s. To the Big East. To the NCAA Tournament.
The redemption story is complete.
The restoration story still needs to be written.
Give the championship back.
