Former Louisville basketball assistant coach Dino Gaudio federally charged for attempt to extort program
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Graduate of the University of Georgia Covers college basketball
Former Louisville basketball assistant coach Dino Gaudio has been charged with one federal count of attempting to extort money and other things of value from the university, according to information released Tuesday by Michael Bennett, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
According to the charge, Gaudio, during an in-person meeting with Louisville officials on March 17, threatened to report to the media allegations that the University of Louisville men s basketball program had violated [NCAA] rules in its production of recruiting videos for prospective student-athletes and its use of graduate assistants in practice, unless the University of Louisville paid [Gaudio] his salary for an additional 17 months or provided the lump sum equivalent of 17 months of
05/19/2021
One of ESPN’s former college basketball analysts is in the news, and not for anything good. Dino Gaudio has a long coaching history in men’s college basketball, including head coaching stints at Army, Loyola (Maryland) and Wake Forest, and worked for ESPN as an analyst from 2011-18, but it’s his latest job (serving as an assistant coach at Louisville, a role he held from 2018 until Monday) that has him in hot water.
After a 13-7 regular season that saw the Cardinals go on to lose to Duke in the first round of the ACC tournament and miss the NCAA tournament, Louisville head coach Chris Mack decided not to renew the contracts of Gaudio and fellow assistant Luke Murray. As per Shannon Russell of
Former Louisville assistant Dino Gaudio charged with felony extortion
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Former Louisville assistant coach Dino Gaudio has been charged with felony extortion in a claim filed Tuesday in the United States Western District of Kentucky.
Men s basketball head coach Chris Mack fired Gaudio in March. The claim alleges that Gaudio threatened to report allegations of recruiting violations to the media unless the university paid his salary for an additional 17 months or in a lump sum equivalent to 17 months salary.
Gaudio allegedly went to an unidentified Louisville athletics personnel member and said he had videos of prospective student athletes that the basketball program had created, as well as evidence that the Cardinal graduate assistants had participated in practice. Both would qualify as Level II NCAA violations.
Transcript: Chris Mack previews ACC tournament
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You can find video of Tuesday’s presser
What do you want to do better in the postseason than you did in your 19 games so far?
Well, I think you’re always trying to improve, trying to learn from last game. We made some mistakes in the Virginia game that if we’re going to advance both in the ACC Tournament and any type of postseason, we have to clean up. We have guys that haven’t played college basketball a lot. You get exposed on a straight-line drive or you miss a blockout or you foul a jump shooter. We need to clean those things up and be at our best and that’s what we’re aiming to do.