Hints from Eric Crawford

From his blog post yesterday:

LOUISVILLE, LOUISVILLE, LOUISVILLE. I don't think the past year has been more tumultuous than Denny Crum's final season, but it has been close. I'll have an extended blog entry on Louisville and its season soon -- or maybe I'll save it for the Tuesday column. But here's a preview.

I had no sooner watched Rick Pitino walk out of Lucas Oil Stadium last season -- leaving his team with still time on the clock for their media interviews after losing to Michigan State in the Elite Eight last season -- than I started wondering what was wrong. I wasn't the only one.

No less an observer than Howard Fineman -- former Courier-Journal staffer and now Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, and a big-time Louisville basketball fan -- sent a note along to say he'd been watching people for a long time, and something with Pitino didn't look right. We found out soon what it was -- with his revelation of a sexual encounter with Karen Sypher and subsequent allegations of extortion against her.

Now, we're faced with a different set of questions over what has gone wrong. Because while no one expected him to field an elite team this season, this group was far less cohesive than it should have been, and seem to look less so as the season went on.