Watch: Rick Pitino’s purported last interview on the scandals that engulfed him

Former University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino went on “The Dan Patrick Show” Thursday in what he said would be his final interview about the scandals that led to his removal from the Cardinals’ program.

Pitino said the facts were going to come out in his breach of contract lawsuit and those facts would help exonerate him, but acknowledged his circumstances paint a bleak picture.

“Would you believe you, Coach?” Patrick asked.

“Absolutely not,” Pitino replied. “I would say ‘wait a second, three years ago, an assistant coach gets in trouble in a dormitory?’ ... and then this breaks? C’mon, we can’t believe this guy.”

Pitino also acknowledged in the interview he would probably never coach college basketball again.

Pitino covered a lot of the same ground he has in previous interviews, including his denials of any involvement in the corruption allegations being investigated by the FBI and any knowledge of the strippers scandal that led to the NCAA vacating Louisville’s 2013 national title.

One nuance in Pitino’s responses was his elaboration on how the University of Louisville Board of Trustees no longer had any “Louisville people” on it and how the new board, who didn’t really know him, cleaned house.

“I think the governor fired the board of trustees. He brought in a pizza guy (Papa John’s founder John Schnatter) who was a big supporter of him. He brought in a guy who has no connections (to Louisville) as the chairman of the board (J. David Grissom), and he brought in other people … He brought in two or three Kentucky graduates on the board and he basically told them ‘look, clean this mess up’ business-wise. Not athletically, because athletically things were going great guns with every sport.

“He said, ‘Look, there’s a lot of problems with this foundation and they’re using the money for a lot of different things. Clean it all up and straighten it all out.’ And then my name gets brought into this complaint, and they said, ‘OK, (former athletic director Tom) Jurich is out, Pitino’s out,’ along with the president who was fired just six months prior to that. …

“They rushed to judgment. Miami didn’t rush to judgment. Arizona didn’t rush to judgment. USC didn’t rush to judgment.”

Pitino was implicated, but not named in a federal indictment released by the U.S. Justice Department in September. No one connected to Louisville has been charged, but Pitino and two of his assistants, also implicated but not named in the indictment, were released by Louisville. Other schools implicated, including Miami and Arizona have not cleaned house as Louisville did after the scandal broke.

Louisville recently hired former Xavier coach Chris Mack to take over the men’s basketball program. The university’s appeal of its case in the stripper scandal was rejected this year. No sanctions in regard to the FBI investigation have been indicated against any school involved in it, as yet.

This story was originally published April 5, 2018 at 3:02 PM with the headline "Watch: Rick Pitino’s purported last interview on the scandals that engulfed him."