Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim went on the radio Wednesday and spoke publicly for the first time about the aftermath of what's happened to Rick Pitino, Louisville's sordid NCAA investigation and the punishments the Cardinals and Pitino are set to receive from the Committee on Infractions.

Boeheim said he didn't believe Pitino knew about the escorts or any of the actions that were arranged primarily by disgraced former U of L director of basketball operations, Andre McGee. Boeheim's comments came on 104.5 ESPN, an affiliate of greater Albany.

"Obviously when somebody does something like that there's going to be repercussions, and I don't believe Rick Pitino knew about it but it still happened," Boeheim said. "I didn't know about somebody putting quotations in a paper at Syracuse, but it happened, so, you know we're going to take the hits for it."

In 2014, Syracuse — just like Louisville would do a season later — self-imposed a postseason ban in an effort to temper down any further widespread sanctions from the NCAA. The Orange wound up getting hit fairly hard, but the one thing that was not touched was Syracuse's 2003 national title. 

"We took our hits, you know Louisville's taken their hits," Boeheim said. "I don't like it, and there's not much you can do about it, but when you go back and say, 'Well this player is ineligible because of what happened here.' Now you forfeit all these games and things, and at the time you didn't know he would be ineligible. So ... it's a hard rule." 

Boeheim was given a nine-game suspension in 2015-16. He appealed that suspension, but lost - although he was allowed to serve the suspension for the Orange's first nine games of the season instead of the first nine ACC games  Pitino's lawyer has already stated that his client will fight the suspension, and Louisville is appealing the potential loss of the 2012-13 national championship banner, the 2012 Final Four appearance and more than 100 wins that happened during the timeline the investigation covered.

Cuse's coach didn't offer up any alternatives, but he did again speak out against the idea of vacating victories. From Boeheim's perspective it still stings because he unofficially has 1,000-plus wins, but because of the NCAA punishment he's officially sitting at 903 victories. 

"I don't know the solution," said Boeheim, "but when you go back and the school, or the player didn't, nobody knew that they were gonna be made ineligible and then they're made ineligible, what, 10 years later? Or how many years later has it been, probably not 10 but seven? You take away games, and I think that's difficult. I think you have to punish schools but when you start taking games away I think it's something I don't have the solution for, but I don't like that particular part of the punishment. But Louisville's fine, they'll be fine, they've got good players, and they'll be real good this year. And they'll recover from this."

Boeheim's comments from the interview start at the 14-minute mark.