1,755 wins, 10 Final Four appearances and three NCAA titles. The Louisville men’s basketball program is a national powerhouse, but right now, the Cardinals are in serious trouble from the NCAA.

“Breaking Cardinal Rules”, released this week and has exposed the program for paying hookers over four years for visiting recruits and spending $10,000 in the process. Supposedly, former Louisville guard and Director of Basketball Operations Andre McGee was behind this all. A woman by the name of Katina Powell wrote the book and is the one who provided McGee the hookers.

Since the release of the news, the NCAA has moved fast and has already interviewed former recruits and players. Ohio State guard JaQuan Lyle recently came out in an interview and confirmed the allegations against Louisville. Many other players were mentioned in the book as well like Terry Rozier, Montrezl Harrell, and LSU guard Antonio Blankney.

At first, no one knew if there was anyway of this being true because both McGee and Rick Pitino denied knowing anything about this. No one should be confident that McGee wasn’t involved but Pitino seems absolutely heartbroken from this news. Especially since it happen in the dorm named after one of his best friends Billy Minardi Hall, where the basketball players stay.

More news broke yesterday that supposedly there wasn’t even sex involved at all. It was just a few girls dancing in bathing suits, a former Louisville player described. He said that the most money total he saw thrown on them was $100. This is obviously completely different than what Powell claimed happen.

There are two sides to the story and the truth should be exposed fairly soon. If there is enough evidence to punish Louisville then there are a few scenarios that could go down. Louisville would experience a one season postseason ban, Rick Pitino resigns or is suspended, reduced scholarships and recruiting sanctions. It would be considered a LEVEL 1 NCAA VIOLATION. Let’s run down these options and see what they would really mean to the program.

A single season postseason ban might be what eventually happens. It would be crushing to the players after an Elite Eight run and bring in two fifth year seniors in Damion Lee and Trey Lewis. The team has the potential to be a special team by the end of the season but that might not even matter now. This Louisville team will be great in 2016-2017 but a Sweet 16 would be a great accomplishment for this season. The ban has the greatest chance of happening.

Rick Pitino has already come out and said that he will not be stepping down as head coach, but a suspension could be foreseeable. Despite him claiming many times that he had no clue of what happen, he would still be hit with “lack of control” over his program. At the end of the day, it would take a lot for Pitino to leave his throne at Louisville, but that might be what the program needs. If Pitino did step down, then the program would be able to have a fresh start. Louisville is still a prominent program and would be able to get a high profile coach to replace him and the program wouldn’t miss a beat.

Some scholarships are possible to be reduced as well. What would this mean for five-star commit V.J. King? Would he still want to attend Louisville? Would his parents still want him to go there? This writer's answer is no as of right now. It's hard to see a reason why he would still want to attend after all the trouble Louisville has been in before and having this looming over the program, but he could see it as that was the past and when he is there the program will be in better shape than it is now. It should be interesting how many scholarships they would take away and what recruits steer away from the program.

This is an interesting case in Louisville. There are still some obvious questions that still need to be answered regardless. Where did McGee get the $10,000 to spend on the hookers? Why did Powell allow her 15-year-old daughter to be involved? Did Pitino really not know what was happening for supposedly four years? How many players were involved, and where does the program go from here? 

The Louisville men’s basketball program will have a major shift one way or another and for right now, it seems to be one that no one wants to happen.