Two weeks ago, the college basketball world was turned upside-down for a handful of schools. The FBI had uncovered 3 years of information into their investigation covering shoe companies, powerhouse division programs, and illegal benefits given to recruits. Some, like Arizona, Oklahoma State, USC, and Auburn, were named outright. Then, there were a few schools anonymously mentioned simply as “University 5” or “University 6”. Details were released about the anonymous schools, which led to speculation as to who those unnamed schools could be. “University 6” pretty obviously described the University of Louisville. We as fans knew that the description was frighteningly accurate,  and while some of us (myself included) didn’t want to face the reality until it was confirmed, deep down, we all knew our beloved university was in turmoil, once again.

As we waited for some source of credible confirmation, Twitter and Facebook feeds filled with assumptions and jumped-to conclusions. Rationally thinking, my thought process was, “no way would our program be that irresponsible to try something so obviously wrong while on probation.” None of it made sense, but the writing was on the wall. As more information came to light, it became more and more abundantly clear that the UofL basketball program had put itself into a hole that even an “I had no idea” statement couldn’t get them out of it. When it was confirmed that Louisville was in fact “University 6”, the next questions that needed to be answered were, “who?” and “why?”. No way would Rick Pitino allow this to happen after being so adamantly against the monopoly shoe companies had on College Basketball. Our team was already set to be a top-10 team, why would we risk all of this just to add one player? It didn’t make sense, and it still doesn’t.

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