Lawyerspeak

And so, on top of everything else he might or might not be, Rick Pitino appears to be more a sit-down guy than a stand-up guy.

That's not how either he or his university would frame it, of course, because that's what a guy has lawyers for. And Pitino's lawyers are telling him it would be a bad idea to attend the ACC basketball media day next week, because, you know, someone might ask him about the late unpleasantness involving Louisville recruits, strippers and madams who pimp out their own daughters.

Pitino's official explanation is he didn't know nuttin' 'bout all that, even though it was going on right under his nose for four years. Now he's decided, or his suits have, that he not only won't say anything else, he'll shelter his delicate flower of a soul from even being asked about it.

The official version, disseminated by the university yesterday, is that Pitino will skip media day  "upon advice of counsel." The street version: He'll skip it because he doesn't have the stones to show up.

This would be gutless enough, but, hey, Pitino and Louisville are here to say you haven't seen gutless  yet. Pitino may not be showing up -- even though fellow ACC coaches Jim Boeheim and Roy Williams did when their schools were under NCAA investigation -- but the school is sending a couple of players to bear the scrutiny their head coach is cowering behind his lawyers to avoid.

And of course, they just happen to be a couple of transfers who weren't around for all the shenanigans.

So to sum up: Pitino's not only curled up in his foxhole, he's sending out a couple of human shields to draw fire. Nice. I hope his players remember this when he launches into the standard coachspeak about how a team is defined by how willing they are to sacrifice for each other.

I also hope the two players, having been duly hurled beneath the bus, return the favor in kind by answering any questions about the scandal thusly: "I don't know. You'd have to ask our coach. He was around for all that, we weren't."

And then, after pausing a beat:

"Oh, that's right. He's not here."