Fired hoops coach Mike Anderson seeks $45.6M from St. John's - ESPN

Former St. John's men's basketball coach Mike Anderson is seeking nearly $46 million from the school after he claims he was fired with cause in March only so the school could avoid paying his buyout and use the money to hire Rick Pitino, per arbitration documents obtained by ESPN on Thursday.

In the «notice of intention to arbitrate» filed last month by Anderson's lawyer, Michael J. Keane of Garfunkel Wild, Anderson said he's seeking the $11.4 million that was left on his contract and an additional $34.2 million for «punitive» damages.

St. John's lured Pitino from Iona after firing Anderson on March 10.

According to the termination letter obtained by ESPN, Anderson 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.»

Per documents obtained by ESPN, Anderson claims St. John's officials had tried to offer him a buyout for less than the $11.4 million remaining on his deal before the school accused him of «fictitious» problems within his program and fired him for cause on March 10.

The university has not responded to ESPN's attempt for comments related to the arbitration documents.

On the day he was fired, Anderson claims the school had already entered advanced talks with Pitino, who was officially hired March 20.

Anderson said that he never changed and that he represented the school in a «first class manner» after he signed an