It made sense for Louisville to appeal because, hey, you never know when it comes to the always unpredictable NCAA. Worth a shot, I guess. But when you've already acknowledged that a member of your coaching staff was buying strippers and prostitutes for players and prospects, and that some of those players helped you win the 2013 NCAA Tournament, the odds of a successful appeal are obviously low.
So is this big news? Sure, it's big news.
But it's only big because it's finally official. The outcome is hardly surprising. Yes, Louisville will vacate its 2013 national title. Yes, the banner is coming down. But, really, we've known these things for a while. Tuesday's announcement just confirmed the inevitable.
"I cannot say this strongly enough: We believe the NCAA is simply wrong," Louisville president Greg Postel said. And he might be right. But that and $7.99 will get you a Kindle edition of Breaking Cardinal Rules: An Expose of Sexual Recruiting Tactics from the Journal Pages of an Escort Queen. In other words, it doesn't matter what Postel thinks.
Louisville's program cheated.
It got caught.
This is the price it must pay. And it's a steep price that doubles as a future Jeopardy! answer.
"This school, in 2018, became the first school to vacate a national championship in men's basketball."
"What is Louisville?" someone will buzz in and say. And they'll be right. Because that is the ACC member's new claim to infamy. Louisville will go down as the first school to ever vacate a national title in men's basketball. And because it must also vacate its 2012 Final Four appearance, Louisville is now one of only three schools to vacate two Final Fours. The others: Memphis and Michigan.
None of which means the memories are gone.
The NCAA can't erase actual events, which former Cardinal Kevin Ware pointed out on Twitter.
And this will be how it forever goes. The players involved will still claim that title, banner or no banner, just like the Memphis players who led the Tigers to the 2008 Final Four still claim their vacated appearance, just like the UMass players who led the Minutemen to the 1996 Final Four still claim their vacated appearance. And then everybody else will make prostitution jokes and cracks about Rick Pitino's back tattoo that suddenly celebrates an accomplishment the NCAA no longer recognizes.
And what a spectacular downfall for an all-time great.
Pitino survived a personal scandal and returned to the top of the sport while becming the first man to ever win a national championship at two different schools. Life was good. But then came Katina Powell's book. And though, to the surprise of some, Pitino initially survived that too, there's no denying it is what made it impossible for him to survive the FBI investigation that ultimately led to his termination before the start of this season. Things stacked up on him. He had one scandal too many. So he had to go.
And now his biggest achievement at Louisville is gone too.
It's been headed that way for a while. On Tuesday it became official. That 2013 national championship banner will, at some point, be removed from the Yum! Center. The memories will last forever, sure. But so will the stain.