Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated
The University of Louisville will no longer be identified as the 2013 NCAA national champions.
This is the first time in modern history that the NCAA has stripped a program of their championship title in Division I men’s basketball. The announcement came on Tuesday afternoon around noon from the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee as a punishment for the school’s escort sex scandal.
The ruling stated that the Louisville men’s basketball program will have 123 wins vacated, including the 2013 national championship title as well as the 2012 Final Four appearance, between the years of 2012-2015.
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, “The appeals panel also upheld a financial penalty that requires Louisville to repay shared revenue from the Cards’ 2012-15 NCAA Tournament appearances, including future revenue shared from those seasons.”
UofL interim president Greg Postel says he estimated the bulk of the punishment will be worth around $600,000.
“I cannot say this strongly enough: We believe the NCAA is simply wrong,” Postel wrote on the Louisville Athletics website.
The news of the escort scandal broke in 2015 when a woman said that former UofL player, who was also serving on the men’s basketball staff, Andre McGee had solicited her escort service. McGee would coordinate parties at an on-campus dorm for potential UofL recruits, and McGee would pay for the escorts to have sex with the recruits.
Former UofL head coach Rick Pitino denied that he knew anything about these allegations, however the escort allegations were eventually found to be true.
To say the athletic department is a mess would be an understatement, and many UofL fans are exhausted from waking up every morning to bad news coming from the athletic department.
“I think not only is the punishment silly, but I think it sets a dangerous precedent for the NCAA. Any retrospective punishment is essentially worthless,” UofL student and fan, Jason Wyrick, said. “Sure, $600k is a hefty fine for the University of Louisville athletic department to pay, but it will be paid and that will be that. The real issue I have with this is not with the silliness of the punishment, but the lack of consistency from the NCAA in its levying of repercussions for violations.”
A reoccurring argument among avid UofL fans has been, “Why has UNC not been punished?”
North Carolina came out unscathed from NCAA sanctions after committing academic fraud by making up and enrolling their men’s basketball players in essentially “fake classes” so that they would be academically eligible to remain on the team.
“It does make you question the NCAA though. Their rulings seem inconsistent. UNC suffered no consequences for handing their players degrees for nonexistent classes and unearning grades,” Campus Correspondent at Belmont and Louisville native, Sarah Self explained. “It is just frustrating and feels so unfair.”
During the 2016 post-season, UofL announced a self-imposed ban on their men’s basketball team, setting them out all post-season tournament play, including the NCAA tournament, in hopes of lessening the NCAA’s wrath on the athletic program.
The NCAA seemed to not take the self-imposed ban into consideration at all.
“While it is not fun being penalized, something had to be done. Even still, this does not feel right. The 2013 men’s team worked so hard to win the national championship and it is not fair that the NCAA is trying to erase that,” Self said. “Many members were innocent and they should not have to pay for someone else’s wrong doing.”