The hits just keep on coming

Whispers have been passing for a couple days that another negative story about UofL was looming. KSR is reporting, that though unconfirmed, the story involves assistant coach Steve Masiello and a Derby ticket scam.

I will be unavailable for the rest of the afternoon, so let me preface these four points by saying IF the story turns out to be true...

Pitino should fire Masiello for these reasons:

1) One cannot preach loyalty, character, integrity and work ethic to players and not hold assistants to the same standard. If Pitino wants to be taken seriously, he's already on thin ice, and he needs to take action.

2) To answer the immediate retort that it would be hypocritical of Pitino given his less than saintly behavior, it's not. What Pitino did was not criminal. What Masiello is accused of doing is. Period. And even if it were hypocritical, who cares? Pitino is "Too Big to Fail" to use the parlance of the times, but Masiello is not.

3) Pitino has been ill-served by his assistants for the past few seasons. Individual instruction and gameplanning, the realm of assistantship, has sufferred. Chucking Masiello would allow for a transfusion of new blood for a new team next year.

4) If he takes immediate action this is a nonstory, no big deal. If he doesn't it gets added to the litany and will spur more hyperbolic articles pronouncing the decline of Louisville basketball. I can only take so much.