Oct 20, 2015 01:54 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

After seeing former players and recruits give accounts of attending parties with strippers and escorts paid for by a basketball staffer, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said he does not know what to believe.

"I don't know if any of this is true or not," Pitino told ESPN's Dana O'Neil and Yahoo! Sports Tuesday during a a conference call. "There's only one person who knows the truth, and he needs to come out and tell the truth to his teammates, to the University of Louisville, to his fans and to his coaches that have taught him to do the right thing for years and allowed him to be part of something special here."

In a book titled, "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen," Katina Powell alleged Andre McGee, a former Louisville graduate assistant coach, hired her and other escorts to have sex with basketball recruits.

Five players spoke to ESPN's "Outside the Lines" on the condition of anonymity and described their experiences at these parties, which included having sex with escorts. Powell also spoke to OTL, saying McGee implied to her that Pitino knew about the escorts because he knows "everything" that goes on within the program.

Pitino previously told ESPN neither he nor anyone on his staff or team knew anything about the parties McGee was allegedly organizing at the University of Louisville's (UL) Billy Minardi Hall residence building. Both the school and the NCAA are investigating the allegations.

Whether Pitino knew or not, ESPN's Jeff Goodman, who aided in the OTL report, told Bob Ley on "SportsCenter" the NCAA can punish the coach for "failure to monitor" all the same. The NCAA has already hit Jim Boeheim and Larry Brown with that charge and sanctioned both with multiple-game suspensions.

As for Pitino's employment status, UL Athletic Director Tom Jurich said in a statement through a spokesperson that the coach "has no plans to step down and he absolutely didn't know about the allegations." Pitino told ESPN and Yahoo Sports he does not know if the alleged parties occurred as reported or not, but maintains he did not know about them and urged McGee to come forward.

"He's the only one with any answers," Pitino said. "Whether it's true or not, I don't know. I spoke to my nephew who lived in Minardi Hall, lived in the dorm, and he said he never saw anything the entire time he lived there. Obviously by what people are saying, something did go on, but there's only one person who knows the truth.

"Everything else is absurd. I don't care about the legal issues. If he's done something wrong, he has to own up to it and do his penance."

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit