What to make of Louisville basketball suspending Chris Mack

Louisville head coach Chris Mack is suspended for six games to start the season. The Dino tapes are out. What to make of yet another mess for Louisville basketball.

On Friday, just as Dino Gaudio was given a slap on the wrist for extortion, Louisville basketball dropped a bombshell by announcing the unpaid suspension of head coach Chris Mack for the first 6 games of the season.

Louisville AD Vince Tyra addressed the media on Friday afternoon to talk about the reasons behind the suspension and much more.

Let’s dive into the major takeaways from yet another wild day for Louisville basketball.

Dino Gaudio is a certified crazy man

The tape of Gaudio going ballistic in Chris Mack’s office is a lot to unpack.

However, what is clear is that he straight-up textbook extorted Mack. It is cut and dry extortion. Just… Just see for yourself.

“You’re not renewing my contract, and you’re paying me for a year and a half, alright? You’re paying me for a year and a half. Here’s why.

Last time this happened to me, the last time this happened to me, I took the high road. I took the high road. I didn’t say anything, said all the good things, that s— … affected my family, my career, my livelihood—that ain’t happening again. That ain’t happening again. See, let me show you something. You’re going to think long and hard about this one, dude. You’re going to be thinking long and hard about this one.

See, it says in my contract here, if there’s anything about NCAA violations, I’m supposed to talk to [Louisville compliance director] John Carns, I’m supposed to talk to [athletic director] Vince Tyra, I’m supposed to talk to all those guys. And you know what? I f—ing will. I f—ing will.

Those GAs all practicing with us? Illegal, illegal. I’ve got documentation from when she called me in the summer when we were emailing each other and texting each other—I’m talking about [women’s basketball coach] Jeff Walz — when Christine, whatever her name was [Herring], came in here and said, ‘Those guys working guys out in the summer, they can’t do that; that’s illegal.’

I mean…

Let’s skip ahead a little.

I don’t want to be here. So you know what you’re doing? You’re going to f—ing pay me. Between me and you, dude, you can go tell Vince ‘Hey Vince’—I don’t care what the f— you tell him—‘Vince, Dino’s my guy. I’m going to pay him for his year and a half. He can retire at 66. I’m going to take care of him.’ That’s what we can do. And you know what? That’s what we’re going to do. Or else I’m going to f—ing John Carns, I’m going to f—ing [Louisville Courier-Journal columnist] Tim Sullivan. I’m going to [Jay] Bilas, [Dick] Vitale, [Fran] Fraschilla—all those f—ing guys. That’s the way this is going to f—ing go down, dude. That’s the way this is going to f—ing go down.

I f—ing helped you get [a former Louisville player]. You didn’t know who f—ing [the player] was until I came back and Pat [Kelsey] told me. I helped you with frickin’ [two other players]—are you f—-ing s—-ing me?

This continues for about five more minutes. Essentially, Gaudio and Mack go into negotiations about exactly how Mack is going to pay Gaudio (out of pocket, Mack suggests) and why Mack is “going in a different direction.”

Throughout the audio, Gaudio is unhinged. He is demanding to be paid. Mack offers to do whatever it takes to mend their friendship. Gaudio plans to come back at noon the next day to put everything in writing.

Also read: 25 predictions for Louisville football in 2021

Gaudio acts like a lunatic throughout the discussion, essentially agreeing to accept $500,000 from his long-time friend and co-worker to go away quietly.

Chris Mack comes off as the “good guy”… kind of

UofL indicated that Mack is being suspended for things unrelated to the attempted extortion.

When it comes to the tape itself, Mack handled things about as well as he could. He likely knew Gaudio was going to come in fired up and asking for money. He protected himself by recording the conversation and baited Gaudio into saying way more than he should have.

Throughout, Mack is calm and measured and seems like the reasonable one during the conversation. He says that he has to do what is best for the program and offers to do whatever it takes to make things right.

After walking into a tough situation at Louisville and being dealt even more difficult hands, Mack was reserved during the entire recording while Gaudio flies off the handle.

Louisville continues to take high road to right its wrongs

Considering all that’s happened at the University of Louisville, specifically within the basketball program, over the last 5+ years, there is zero margin for error.

So, despite being extorted by a former assistant over “minor violations,” Mack is the one experiencing the blowback. The focus has now shifted to those “no big deal” violations that were a part of the initial reporting of former assistant Dino Gaudio’s firing. Athletics Director Vince Tyra sent a clear message that no one is bigger than the university rules and code of conduct.

If Louisville basketball wasn’t awaiting a decision from the NCAA/IARP this would be less of an ordeal. However, because they are, the suspension feels justified. Tyra and the Cards can’t afford any more nonsense on his watch (although it seems to find them at every opportunity), and this suspension is a stern reminder to keep things in check.

In a statement released by the Louisville basketball program, Mack said, “I regret that any of my unintentional actions or failures to follow University guidelines have brought unnecessary attention to our outstanding athletics programs and University.” He went on to “accept this suspension” and express his desire to get his guys ready to play in November.

We saw what proactive, internal punishment means to the NCAA. Jack crap. They don’t care and they never will. So, if this was indeed a dual-purpose message, with the NCAA being an expected recipient I’m not necessarily sure the desired outcome was accomplished.

That means Louisville just suspended their coach for six crucial games in a must-win season. Oh yeah, did I mention that no coach on staff has (NCAA) head coaching experience and the Cards are working in 8 new players? The offseason just became much more important.

Tyra has proven to be on top of most things thus far in his tenure, but this punishment at this time stings a little more.

We’ll find out a lot about the new Louisville basketball staff very quickly

While Chris Mack sits out his six games, without pay (roughly $221,000 in compensation), someone else will lead the charge as interim head coach. As the release lays out, “during the suspension, Coach Mack is prohibited from having any contact with the men’s basketball coaching staff or student-athletes.”

By the time you’re reading this, there’s a good chance we know who the coach will be in place of Mack. Louisville basketball fans should be on the lookout for senior assistant, Mike Pegues, to step into the role. With Dino Gaudio and Luke Murray moving on, Pegues is the most tenured assistant on staff. He came to Louisville in 2019 after serving as an assistant for Mack at Xavier for six years and is the most experienced by far.

Mack could turn to offensive guru Ross McMains who has become the darling of Louisville basketball fans. It is his fingerprints that will be all over the Louisville offense this season, so it makes sense to give him a chance to run the team. McMains has never coached in college but he’s cut his teeth overseas and working in the NBA G-League. Throwing McMains into the fire that quickly may be risky, especially with the team traveling to the Bahamas for an MTE. They need to come out of the gates firing on all cylinders and throwing a rookie college coach into the mix may be too much.

There’s Kahil Fennell, another rookie head coach. He’s a guy who Mack has praised for his basketball acumen and connection with the players on staff. In his statement, Mack said, “Kahil has been a tremendous asset to our program… He has proven himself to be an extremely hard worker and well-connected with our student-athletes. Having him as a coach on the floor and in the recruiting position will do nothing but add to our program in the years to come.”

Despite being in his first on-court role, Fennell is familiar with the program and would have a strong command of the group. If I was making the choice, it would be Fennell.

One thing is for sure; we’ll quickly be able to gauge just how good the staff is around Mack.

There is still more to the story

The final takeaway should be that there is still much more to this story than we know.

Tyra chose his words carefully during Friday’s presser, saying that Louisville “settled” on a six-game suspension.

There are already murmurs around the university that president Neeli Bendapudi was none too pleased about Mack’s actions and ready to seriously penalize or fire him after his actions.

“Related to how this was handled,” Tyra said “obviously, Chris didn’t handle this the way that we would’ve liked to see it handled. We did an HR review, and we came out to a point where we felt like there were some lessons learned for him.”

Tyra took full responsibility for the decision to suspend Mack, but his explanations of the process felt more like he was talking his bosses out of taking much more serious action.

Is there a divide between Bendapudi and the athletic department? That remains to be seen. However, Friday felt like a much different handling of the situation than most in the city anticipated.

We will continue to update the story as more information is released.