Boeheim backs Pitino, believes he was unaware of escort scandal
Rick Pitino has been adamant he had no idea escorts were being paid to entertain prospective recruits at Louisville for four years, and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim believes him.
"Obviously, when somebody does something like that there's going to be repercussions, and I don't believe Rick Pitino knew about it but it still happened," Boeheim said Wednesday on 104.5 ESPN in Albany, N.Y.
The NCAA sanctioned Pitino and the Cardinals last week for the program's transgressions. It determined Pitino failed to monitor former staff member Andre McGee, the man accused of arranging the escort parties, and suspended him for five ACC games while also vacating more than 100 Cardinals victories between December 2010 and July 2014.
Boeheim, meanwhile, has also had a run-in with the NCAA, as Syracuse became the subject of an academic scandal investigation that led to a nine-game suspension for the coach to begin the 2015-16 campaign. After the NCAA ruled he failed to promote a compliance of NCAA rules for nearly a decade, Boeheim's program was forced to surrender 101 victories.
"We took our hits, you know Louisville's taken their hits," Boeheim said. "I don't like it, and there's not much you can do about it, but when you go back and say, 'Well this player is ineligible because of what happened here.' Now you forfeit all these games and things, and at the time you didn't know he would be ineligible. So ... it's a hard rule."
While the sanctions against Syracuse were steep, Louisville could be hit even harder. Barring a successful appeal of the NCAA's reprimands, the Cardinals will be forced to forfeit their 2013 NCAA championship.
"I think you have to punish schools but when you start taking games away I think it's something I don't have the solution for, but I don't like that particular part of the punishment," added Boeheim. "But Louisville's fine, they'll be fine, they've got good players, and they'll be real good this year. And they'll recover from this."
- With h/t to CBS Sports