Rick Pitino Says Louisville Should Fight NCAA Title Vacation Ruling

Former Louisville head basketball coach Rick Pitino believes the school should fight the NCAA's decision that forced the school to vacate its 2013 national championship.

Per Jeff Greer of the Courier Journal, Pitino said he doesn't know if Louisville's current board of trustees will challenge the decision but they "need to get an injunction."

Pitino also denied knowing anything about former graduate assistant coach Andre McGee paying for strippers to attend parties at a campus dorm for former Louisville basketball players and recruits.

"I had no knowledge of the reprehensible things that went on in that dormitory," he said, via ESPN's Jeff Borzello. "In 40 years of coaching, I have never been involved, directly or indirectly, in any effort to pay any money or extend any improper benefit to any recruit or recruit's family members or representatives."

The NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee (h/t NCAA.org's Emily James) ruled on Tuesday that Louisville must vacate all of its wins from the 2011-15 academic years in which ineligible players appeared in games and pay back money the school received for its NCAA tournament appearances from 2012-15. 

The NCAA infractions committee ruled last June that Pitino failed to properly monitor his program and the actions of McGee, who was with the Cardinals from 2010-14. 

Louisville's board of trustees voted in October to fire Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich. The Cardinals won 123 games from 2011-15, including appearing in the Final Four in 2012 and defeating Michigan in 2013 for the school's first national title in 27 years.