Louisville and the NCAA are looking into allegations in a soon-to-be-published book that a former director of basketball operations paid an escort service to provide sex for Cardinals recruits.

The NCAA talked to LSU freshman and ex-Louisville commit Antonio Blakeney earlier this week about his experiences on a recruiting visit, a source told ESPN.

"We're still trying to uncover the facts," Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said during a news conference Friday. "We want to get to the bottom of it as much as anybody does ... and we will."

The book, titled "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen," contends that a woman named Katina Powell was hired repeatedly by former Louisville player, graduate assistant and director of basketball operations Andre McGee to provide strippers and prostitutes during recruits' campus visits.

Powell says she provided entertainment for 22 parties from 2010 to 2014 at Billy Minardi Hall, which houses Cardinals basketball players on campus. Powell said she and three of her daughters, along with other women, participated in the sex acts. Powell reveals in the book that she received more than $10,000 for supplying women for the parties.

 

"To say I'm disheartened, disappointed would be the biggest understatement I've made as a coach," coach Rick Pitino said of the allegations during a Friday news conference.

 

Pitino said he has spoken with McGee once since learning about the book's contents. Pitino said McGee did not admit to any wrongdoing.