Former St. John's head coach Mike Anderson has filed a lawsuit against the school saying it used money that was supposed to go to him in a buyout to hire Rick Pitino.
Anderson says the school fired him with cause to avoid buying him out. He is seeking $45.6 million from the school.
Anderson was owed $11.4 million for the remainder of his deal, so he is seeking that along with another $34.2 million in punitive damages.
ESPN reported that Anderson's termination letter says he was fired for "failure to create and support an environment that strongly encourages student-athletes who are in the men's basketball program to meet all university academic requirements," … "failure to perform your duties and responsibilities in a manner that reflected positively on St. John's University ... in actions [that] brought serious discredit" to the school and "failure to appropriately supervise and communicate with your assistant coaches."
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Anderson also is claiming the school attempted to buy him out for less than the $11.4 million left on his deal and then made up "fictitious" problems to fire him for cause.
"The ‘for cause’ accusation is wholly without merit, and I will be aggressively defending my contractual rights through an arbitration process," he said at the time.
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The school denied Anderson's claims in a statement Thursday.
"We dispute the wildly inaccurate claims being reported in the media and will vigorously defend those claims in arbitration," the university said.
Anderson was given a six-year extension in February 2021, but the Red Storm hired Pitino shortly after he and his Iona Gaels were eliminated from the March Madness tournament by eventual national champion UConn.
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Anderson was fired after going 68-56 in his 124 games with the university. He was also 30-46 in Big East play and never reached the NCAA Tournament.
Fox News' Scott Thompson contributed to this report.