The Louisville basketball program had a tumultuous offseason to say the least as there were allegations of improprieties in the recruiting process. The NCAA continues to investigate the program for allegations that they hired escorts to have sex with recruits and although there has been no official punishment to the program yet head coach Rick Pitino thinks his team is being punished in the rankings because of the scandal, according to Jeff Greer of the Courier-Journal.
The allegations came out against Louisville this summer when self-described escort Katina Powell released a book detailing how former assistant coach Andre McGee paid her to have sex with recruits. Since the book was released a few players have admitted to this happening but other players have denied it. There was a point when people were calling for Rick Pitino to resign as head coach but he said he wouldn't and that he was focused on this basketball team.
Now his Cardinals are off to a 5-0 start and have won every game by at least 20 points but they are still not ranked and Pitino believes he knows why. "I think people are looking at that and they're not really studying the team," said Pitino and he later added that his team is "just ignored" because of the negative attention the program has been getting.
Louisville was not ranked in either of the preseason polls (AP or USA Today) but they did receive votes in both. In the USA Today Poll they had enough votes to effectively be ranked 27th in the nation but the rankings only go up to 25 so they clearly had a certain amount of respect coming into the season. In the latest poll Louisville still had the 27th most votes despite not having lost and while Pitino believes it was because of the scandal it is more likely because they haven't played anybody.
Louisville does have an extremely talented team despite losing key players like Montrezl Harrell and Terry Rozier to the NBA this season as they brought in the number six recruiting class in the nation for 2015, according to 247 Sports, but it comes down to the schedule and they haven't played any teams that really had a chance of beating them. The Cardinals will have a chance to prove they deserve to be ranked on Wednesday night though when they head to Michigan State to take on the number three Spartans as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. If Louisville finds a way to win that tough road game, the voters will have no choice but to rank them regardless of their feelings on the scandal surrounding the program.
UPDATE: The latest AP Poll has been released and Louisville enters for the first time at number 24. Check out the poll here.
