John Clay's Sidelines

Much to (previous commenter) Pete’s chagrin, I’m back in Louisville for Rick Pitino’s second day of testimony at the Karen Sypher trial. I should have an update around lunch time.

Here are few leftover items from Wednesday:

• The 15 seconds. Make up your own joke, and most everyone already has.

• Poor Vincent Tatum. Pitino’s personal assistant/designated driver located himself on the other side of a brick wall at Porcini’s while his boss and Sypher were together that night in an otherwise empty restaurant of July 31, 2008. Tatum waited for an hour, he testified, before hearing Pitino leave. Then he waited another hour to see if Pitino was coming back, before he, too, finally left.

• At the end of the day, Pitino stood up in the witness box, waiting to be told he could leave. As he stood there, Karen Sypher rose from her spot at the defense table and stood staring at the U of L coach. Pitino never looked her way. When Rick finally got the OK he could leave, he left down the center aisle of the courtroom, as the gallery was filing out. Sypher’s eyes followed the Louisville coach all the way out the door.

• This morning, anyway, Bill Rambicure may be the most famous attorney in Lexington. He is the legal counsel that convinced Pitino to take the alleged extortion attempt to the authorities.

• This morning’s cross-examination promises to be much more tense, and more entertaining than Wednesday, when the U of L coach received friendly questions from U.S. assistant district attorney Marisa Ford. Sypher’s attorney, Jim Earhart, is tall, with a bald head, and a direct manner. No doubt, he’d love to get Pitino hot under the collar.

• When talking about U of L basketball, Pitino couldn’t help but fall into old habits. He told the jury that every team starts with the dream of making the NCAA Tournament. It was as if he was in a recruit’s living room making a sales pitch. He continually called the Big East arguably the most difficult conference in college basketball. He clamed the team’s game at West Virginia that year, the day after he received a hand-delivered note outlining Sypher’s demands, was the toughest road environment any of his teams had ever played in.