John Clay’s Sidelines

More links dealing with the Rick Pitino sex scandal:

MUST-READ: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports writes, “Who wants Pitino? Not the NBA.”

• NEW: Writing for NBC Bay Area, Josh Alper admonishes Pitino for using 9/11 as crutch.
• NEW: Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer says stop the moralizing.
• NEW: Gregg Doyel of CBS Sportsline writes that Pitino doesn’t deserve hate or firing squad.
• NEW: Jeff Pearlman of SI.com writes that Pitino case proves that winning comes before morality for coaches.
• Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News, who once wrote a book with Pitino, writes that the coach may never recover from scandal.
• Ray Melick of the Birmingham News writes that Louisville defines itself by choosing to accept Rick Pitino’s apology.
• Tom Arenberg of the Birmingham News writes that Pitino’s actions has done irreparable harm.
• Rick Bozich of the Courier-Journal writes that Pitino’s apology was a necessary first big step.
• The C-J’s editorial on Pitino’s admission.
• Joe Biddle of the Tennessean writes that Louisville did not even give Pitino a slap on the wrist.
• The Baltimore Sun has a cross-section of opinion on the Pitino scandal.
• Yael T. Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star calls it “Pitino’s pitiful affair.”
• Christine Brennan of USA Today wonders how Pitino can continue as coach.
• Will Graves of the AP writes that the Pitino damage will be hard to repair.

Update: Fox Sports’ Jeff Goodman writes that Pitino scandal is bound to affect recruiting.

Here’s my column saying that the scandal will affect Rick Pitino’s ability to his job.

But my friend Mike DeCourcy doesn’t quite agree. The Sporting News’ college basketball expert thinks Pitino will have some difficulty, but will still be able to pull in top-notch recruits.

Excerpt:

Second, there is bound to be some player out there - or, more likely, a family member of a player - who views this development as a reason to eliminate Louisville from consideration. Even if it’s only one player - and there’ll never be a way to tally them - losing somebody the program might otherwise have landed would be a negative consequence.

Generally, the impact will not be debilitating. Pitino’s contacts, particularly in New York and Seattle, are firmly established. The Cardinals will still land players capable of competing in the Big East.

Meanwhile, over at CBS Sportsline, Garry Parrish says coaches have been fired for less.

Continue reading ‘DeCourcy says Pitino won’t be badly hurt by scandal’

Don’t you just love how the WWL says police report was obtained by numerous outlets, without mentioning the newspaper (C-J) that broke the story?

Karen Sypher (AP photo)

Wondering the national average-Joe reaction to the Rick Pitino sex scandal?

I perused Twitter this morning and discovered some pretty entertaining and creating “tweets” about the story:

• missingfingers: I neglect to watch Sports Center one night and miss Youk getting hit by a pitch and Pitino paying 3 grand to get rid of his problem. Sigh.

• Russ_Kessler: @johnclayiv Your right. However, I am trying to talk my wife into letting me take her to Porcini’s for her birthday.

• @sportsguy33: But seriously… Couldn’t this Pitino thing have happened before ESPN released its twitter policy??? I am so bitter.

• cattleprod: It’s disappointing that the Courier-Journal has disabled comments on their Rick Pitino Trailer Trash story. Was SO looking forward to it all

• @sportspickle: Rival Coaches Telling Recruits That Rick Pitino Might Abort Them

• BostonFaninDC: Wish we could abort Pitino’s tenure with the Celtics

• CyberHodge: Porcini’s Restaurant must serve some seriously great oysters.

Continue reading ‘Best of Twitter on Rick Pitino’

Karen Sypher

The Courier-Journal is reporting that U of L basketball coach Rick Pitino told Louisville police that he had consensual sex with Karen Sypher on Aug. 1, 2003, but he denied her allegation that he raped her.

Pitino did say that he gave Sypher $3,000 to have an abortion.

The C-J obtained the information through open records requests.

The C-J reports that prosecutors who have reviewed the charges do not believe that Pitino will be charged.

Syphers has been indicted on extortion charges.

Be sure and click on the story. It has excellent detail.

Fab Melo

The wondrously named Fab Melo, the fifth-best player in the 2010 Class as rated by Rivals, has picked Syracuse over Louisville.

That’s a blow for the Cards, who had made the 7-foot center from Florida a top target.

At this point, the Cards’ top commitment for 2010 is Josh Langford, ranked No. 137 by Rivals. But then I’m sure Cardinal fans would be quit to point out that Kentucky has yet to ring up a top 150 commitment for 2010.

Card Chronicle admits to the news.

At SportsIllustrated.com, Luke Winn writes that when he entered Madison Square Garden for last night’s NBA draft, he noticed the seating arrangement had new UK coach John Calipari sitting directly behind U of L coach, and rival, Rick Pitino.

Winn said he never saw Cal sit in that seat, however.

Excerpt:

The ego-cramping in that scenario would’ve rivaled the physical cramping that occurred when the NBA seated Shawn Bradley and Manute Bol back-to-back at the 2004 draft. Pitino eventually sat in his seat while Calipari — at least while I was in the room — avoided his, which meant no awkward photos, and no opportunity for Kentucky fans to create Photoshops of him putting his feet in Pitino’s hair.

Hat tip to Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog.

Ralph Willard

Update: It’s official.

Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports is reporting that Ralph Willard has decided to resign as head coach at Holy Cross and join Rick Pitino at Louisville.

This development would throw water on rumors that Pitino would be interested in the opening at Southern Cal, now that Tim Floyd has resigned.

After all, why would Willard agree to come to Louisville if Pitino was on his way to Los Angeles?

It’s also a good hire. Willard is a terrific basketball coach, who was Rick’s assistant at UK before becoming head coach at Western Kentucky, then Pittsburgh and Holy Cross.

This is probably the best news Pitino has received in quite some time.

Now that Tim Floyd’s devil-deal with O.J. Mayo has led him to the unemployment line, Southern Cal is in the job market for a new basketball coach.

Name to watch: Rick Pitino.

It’s already started this morning with buzz that the Louisville coach could be a candidate to rescue the fallen Trojans. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but given the circumstances involved, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility.

Circumstances such as:

• There is the ugly Karen Sypher extortion trial on the horizon, which promises to divulge many ugly and embarrassing details if it makes its way into the courtroom. There is a line of thinking that Pitino would rather handle those headlines from afar rather than right there in the city of Louisville.

• There were rumors throughout last season that Rick was interested in the open Arizona job, which eventually went to Xavier coach Sean Miller. And that was before the Sypher story broke.

Continue reading ‘Get ready for the Rick Pitino to Southern Cal speculation’

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports is reporting that Rick Pitino has emerged as a candidate for the vacant Sacramento Kings’ head coaching job.

That might explain some of the rumors going around Louisville today that Pitino was about to resign as U of L’s coach, a rumor refuted by C.L. Brown of the Courier-Journal.

Excerpt from Yahoo:

Pitino has communicated his interest in a possible NBA return to Kings ownership, sources say, and one league official describes the Maloof family as “intrigued.”

It is believed that Pitino intermediaries initiated the contact. No Kings offer is imminent and so far conversations have been exploratory in nature.

Sources caution that there are significant hurdles that need to be cleared before Pitino could become Sacramento’s coach, but say for a variety of reasons Pitino is feeling the pull of the pros again.

Kings co-owner Gavin Maloof denied that the Kings have spoken with Pitino, but several NCAA and NBA sources strongly insist that Pitino has talked by phone with at least one member of the family and has been a major topic of discussion within the organization the past week.

There were rumors during the season that Pitino was interested in the coaching vacancy at Arizona. Given the unflattering headlines made at season’s end thanks to the “extortion” episode, it isn’t shocking that Pitino might be exploring other opportunities. It doesn’t mean that Rick is leaving Louisville, however.

Hat tip to Card Chronicle.