Rick Pitino directed illegal payments to players, unsealed indictments reportedly allege

Although former Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino has continued to deny that he had any knowledge of his program's alleged involvement in a wide-ranging federal investigation into alleged bribery of recruits and related fraud, new court documents paint a much different picture.

According to unsealed indictments obtained by NBC News, Pitino was not only aware of the alleged bribery scheme involving his assistant coaches and Adidas, but directly involved in it.

NBC NEWS: Indictments unsealed in NCAA fraud and bribery case allege that Rick Pitino ("coach-2") had knowledge of and directed payments to players. pic.twitter.com/npMZtRpRyH
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) November 8, 2017

The FBI's allegations against Louisville include payments of $100,000 to the family of an unidentified player, believed to be five-star recruit Brian Bowen. Pitino has widely been identified as "Coach 2" in the court documents.

Pitino, 65, told ESPN in October he was "flabbergasted" when he heard the FBI and Department of Justice had arrested 10 assistant coaches from high-profile programs as well as a high-ranking Adidas executive.

The Hall of Fame coach also said in the wide-ranging interview that he took a lie detector test and was asked two questions by the polygraph examiner. Pitino said he was asked two questions: First, if he had any knowledge of the Bowen family receiving money and, second, whether he had any knowledge of an Adidas transaction.

"I answered 'absolutely not' on both questions and passed the lie detector test. So I had no knowledge of any of this," Pitino said

Louisville's athletic board voted unanimously to fire Pitino in October "for cause", and the former coach promptly announced plans to file a lawsuit against Adidas. Athletics director Tom Jurich was also fired in October amid the pay-for-play scandal.

During a coaching career spanning nearly three decades, Pitino has won 770 games at the college level, two national titles and his teams have advanced to the Final Four seven times. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.