Louisville basketball: Rick Pitino continues to distance himself in sex scandal

Embattled Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino is again maintaining he did nothing wrong when it comes to the alleged sex parties with strippers scandal that is keeping the school out of this season's NCAA Tournament.

The university imposed its own ban that prohibited the team from participating in the tournament and ESPN's Outside the Lines recently reported that at least three former recruits told NCAA investigators they attended parties in an on-campus dorm where prostitutes were paid to have sex with them.

Pitino is slated to meet with NCAA investigators next month. He reiterated during an ESPN Radio interview on Tuesday that he had no knowledge of the situation and he once again blamed former staffer Andre McGee for any wrongdoing.

"You have your dorm security people, who are being interviewed by the NCAA, then you have your graduate assistants," Pitino told the "Mike & Mike" show. "One unfortunate one was Andre McGee, whose sole responsibility was to make sure the kids get to school on time, make sure they get up in the mornings when they have a presentation or breakfast with a head coach or family.

"And then we have another graduate assistant. So the problem we had is we did have people in place. And the one person we did have in place, whose sole responsibility was to make sure they do the right things, and unfortunately that was Andre McGee. That was the problem there."

The sex scandal became public in October when escort Katina Powell wrote about the activities in a book called "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen."

Powell detailed how McGee paid her roughly $10,000 between 2010 and 2014 to supply dancers and escorts to parties at the Louisville on-campus dorm that houses the basketball players.

Outside the Lines reported that McGee would give players stacks of bills from between $200 to $500 for use at the parties.

Pitino hasn't spoken with McGee since the scandal broke and used the opportunity to speak about him to take a shot at in-state rival Kentucky.

"If I could just get Andre McGee in a room for 10 minutes, I would say to him: 'Why would you do this? What purpose did it serve? We didn't need this to get recruits,'" Pitino said. "We're not Kentucky, where we're recruiting the one-and-dones. We have a different way we recruit. It didn't make any sense what was going on. How these women infiltrated our program is very disturbing to me."

As Pitino waits to see how developments unfold, he is a spectator during the opening week of the NCAA Tournament.

That bothers him immensely.

"It's a bitter pill to swallow," Pitino said. "March Madness is my favorite time of year."