Rick Pitino Passed Polygraph Test When Asked About Louisville FBI Scandal

Former Louisville head coach Rick Pitino passed a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent when asked questions about Brian Bowen, whose family allegedly was set to receive $100,000 from Adidas in exchange for his commitment to Louisville.

Pitino said he neither knew of the payments nor participated in them, per Jason Riley of WDRB.com:

Pitino has also said Bowen didn't choose Louisville for financial reasons, while Bowen's mother reportedly told the head coach she knew nothing about any bribery payments, per Chris Otts of WDRB.com:

But a report by Marc Tracy and Adam Zagoria of the New York Times in early October stated the first of four expected payments of $25,000 allegedly was made to Bowen's father in July.

Per that report, the payments allegedly were funneled between four men: "Jim Gatto, global director of marketing for Adidas Basketball; Merl Code, who works with Adidas's grassroots basketball program; Christian Dawkins, an employee of a sports management company who had ties to Saginaw and to Bowen through a youth program; and Munish Sood, a money manager."

Gatto and Code allegedly asked Dawkins to front the money to pay Bowen's father, since they were having difficulty receiving the money from Adidas, which had to create false purchase orders to do so. Adidas later reimbursed Dawkins through "a backdoor account," while an undercover FBI agent brought the $25,000 to Sood. He then gave the money to Bowen's father.

Tracy and Zagoria added:

"In fact, the second $25,000 his family was to have received was the subject of a phone call just last month—less than two weeks before the charges were announced—between Gatto and Code. Gatto joked about another inevitable delay resulting from Adidas bureaucracy, and suggested they begin processing the payment soon. Regarding the rest of the money—$50,000—Gatto was not worried. He said they could 'figure out the other 50 in '18.'"

While polygraph tests are usually deemed inadmissible in court, the results of Pitino's test align with his statements since the FBI announced its widespread investigation into college basketball. After he was placed on administrative leave by Louisville in late September, Pitino said in a statement he was unaware of any payments made to individual recruits.

"As I've previously stated, I had no knowledge of any payments to any recruit or their family," he said, per Zagoria. "But I was the head coach, and I will take ownership of my decisions. The university took the action they thought was necessary, and I will do the same."