Veteran college basketball coach Rick Pitino addressed the controversial reinstatement of Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby, and he made his opinion of it rather clear. Sorsby received a temporary injunction in his NCAA gambling case this week and is currently eligible to play during the 2026 season.
Many feel that the ruling sets a precedent that it is okay to wager on your own team. While at Indiana, Sorsby bet on his own team’s football games. He also reportedly wagered more than $90,000 over the last four years through sportsbook accounts registered in the names of friends and family members on his behalf.
On Tuesday, Rick Pitino addressed the Brendan Sorsby situation during an appearance on Schein Time. While not absolving Brendan Sorsby of any wrongdoing, the coach also placed much of the blame on gambling companies.
Rick Pitino lays a lot of the blame for the Brendon Sorsby situation on gambling companies and TV networks
During the interview, host Adam Schein called Brendan Sorsby’s reinstatement a “disgrace of epic proportions” and asked Rick Pitino for his reaction to the ruling.
“Well, I agree with you, but let’s look at it this way,” Pitino began. “Look, if you’re constantly selling alcohol to players, you’re going to have some addicts. If you’re in the middle of games and they’re breaking in, FanDuel’s breaking in and saying the line is this and the line is that, and but I believe … you’re creating addicts, by the way, you’re showing it on television.
“Now, I will say this. I can see you becoming a football gambler because of all day long on ESPN, all they’re talking about is the line and gambling and who you’re picking and so on. You’re going to have a lot of athletes that become gamblers because of it.”
Rick Pitino believes Brendan Sorsby crossed a line you simply can’t ‘step across’
“But you can never ever step across,” Rick Pitino clarified. “Pete Rose, I knew very well you could never put him in the Hall of Fame because he gambled on games. Now, you can’t possibly let this young man play because he gambled on his games.
“But for some reason, I think that judge is saying you have advertisements during the game from FanDuel, from MGM, and saying, you’ve got your talent on the air doing commercials about that. You’re gonna have some people with addiction problems, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s drugs, if you’re constantly showing that, you’re going to have some problems going ahead in college as well as the pros.”
For what it’s worth, Brendan Sorsby also blamed the gambling companies in a statement to the NCAA, saying, “My betting became a compulsion which made it virtually impossible to resist the constant notifications I received from betting apps. I lost complete control of my addiction. I now realize the apps controlled me and I did not control them.”