The annual ACC Media Day set for next week in Charlotte just got a whole lot more interesting.
All 15 of the league’s teams will be represented, but only 14 head coaches will be on hand after Louisville officially announced that Rick Pitino won’t attend on the advice of counsel because of the sex scandal.
That leaves graduate-transfers Damion Lee and Trey Lewis — who have yet to play a single game for the Cardinals — as Louisville’s only representatives at the event, and certainly puts them in a tough, and awkward, position.
“[It’s a] bad situation all around,” one Division 1 coach told me when I asked what he thought of the arrangement. “I don’t see a good solution to any of it except sending the SID or something like that. I can’t say I agree with sending college kids (though they are technically graduates, so you could consider them adults) into that fire, but hopefully the media doesn’t badger/assault them with questions they can’t/shouldn’t have to answer. [I’m] not blaming the media for this situation, but hopefully they can keep the questions to mostly basketball with them and save the scandal questions for Pitino.”
The coach then asked me, “Being a reporter, do you think guys will respect the spot they [the players] are in and keep it mainly basketball related. Obviously the scandal is a huge story but everyone knows the kids don’t have the answers so why ask?”
I can appreciate that, coach, but my basic answer is, “Good luck with that.”
Lee and Lewis just arrived at Louisville this year and presumably have no knowledge of anything that went on during the Andre McGee years from 2010-14 but they will almost certainly be asked about it because that is the job of reporters.
“How are you guys managing to stay focused amid all the distractions?”
“How will you be able to block out all the media scrutiny about Louisville and the Katina Powell allegations as the season begins?”
“Do you think it will bring you guys closer together as a team?”
“What happens if the Louisville, NCAA or criminal investigations are concluded and punishments are handed down during the season?”
“What message has Pitino given to you guys about moving forward in the wake of the scandal?”
Lee and Lewis will probably say something to the effect of, “We don’t know anything about what happened. We just got here. We’re here to play basketball. And this will only bring us together and make us stronger as a team.”
I asked a couple of current and former college basketball Sports Information Directors what they thought of Louisville’s media day setup.
“‘It’s a volatile no-win situation,” one SID said. “Everyone’s gonna be asking about the escorts. They obviously don’t want to talk about it… Don’t even want to have to confront it. I’m sure they have been prepped on how to handle those questions.”
“I would think that puts those student-athletes in a tough situation,” a second SID said. “The coach as the leader ideally would be there to answer those questions during a troubling time for the program.”
Yep, that about sums it up.
But Pitino won’t be there despite the fact that he’s done numerous interviews — with Louisville radio host Terry Meiners, ESPN’s Dana O’Neil and Yahoo’s Pat Forde — in recent days. He’s also spoken publicly at several events and issued a statement on his Website in which he declared he wouldn’t resign amid the controversy.
Yet now, after all of that, his attorney(s) decided he shouldn’t speak at media day?
“I do not want the allegations we are facing to negatively impact the other 14 institutions on what should be a great event to talk about the approaching basketball season,” his statement reads. “I realize that while many would like to question me on the allegations, the NCAA does not permit me to speak on the subject.”
Pitino’s absence will leave others to speak for him — namely his players and the league’s other coaches and players.
High-profile coaches like Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, North Carolina’s Roy Williams, Virginia’s Tony Bennett and Notre Dame’s Mike Brey will almost surely be asked their thoughts on the matter.
Kentucky coach John Calipari, after all, was asked about it at Kentucky’s media day.
(And as Louisville columnist Eric Crawford and others have pointed out, Boeheim, Williams and Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher all appeared at media day a year ago to answer their own tough questions on NCAA-related matters.)
To be sure, there are other things to talk about at ACC media day.
The league placed three teams — North Carolina, Duke and Virginia — in the top six of the Preseason Coaches’ Poll, and all three (along with Kentucky, Maryland, Kansas and others) have a shot to win the national championship.
The league features numerous future pros, including Duke’s potential one-and-done forward Brandon Ingram, and North Carolina’s quartet of projected pros in Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks, Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige.
Coach K is coming off winning a national championship, his fifth, and will step down as coach of the U.S. National Team after the Rio Olympics in 2016.
There will be no shortage of articles written and interviews done.
But let’s face it. The Louisville scandal is pretty much all anyone in college basketball is talking about and it figures to be the hot topic at ACC media day.
And now Damion Lee and Trey Lewis will be thrust into the awkward, and unfortunate, position of having to answer for their coach and their University.
