Ok, ok, so you guys heard the news about Louisville? NCAA sent those birds a “Notice of Allegations.” Sounds serious, right? Well, we’ll be the judge of that.
You see, from the looks of it, the impression I’m getting as your NIT correspondent is that the allegations are all from the Brian Bowen thing (I too wondered if there was a scandal I was forgetting). Louisville’s cleaned house since then. Which, unfortunately for their NIT hopes, means this probably won’t damage the on-court product.
Yes, the better hope for Louisville to get their first true national championship since 1956 (not to mention just their second NIT appearance in the last 15 seasons) is for the program to flounder through more traditional means. Missing shots. Non-conference losses. General frustration. Perceived futility.
That said, if the allegations can be used by other schools to mislead recruits into thinking Louisville’s about to get the death penalty, it could help. But on the flip side, if recruits take the allegations as evidence Louisville will pay them a lot under the table, it could hurt.
We’ll see.
