LOUISVILLE — Kenny Payne appeared like a man in search of hope in a onerous actuality. His Louisville basketball group got here shut, so painstakingly shut, to lastly doing it — successful a kind of video games upon which corners are turned. Instead, No. 19 Texas pulled away late, handing Payne his thirtieth loss in 36 video games as coach of the Cardinals. This was 4 weeks in the past, what, in hindsight, seems like 4 years in the past.
Payne settled in for a postgame information convention at Madison Square Garden. There was a sure optimism to him that Sunday afternoon. He nodded and provided a figuring out gaze. “It’s only going to get better,” he mentioned. “It’s not going to get worse.”
It was troublesome to think about then how flawed he was.
The Cards misplaced to Indiana the next day. Then, uncomfortable dwelling wins over New Mexico State and Bellarmine in a near-empty KFC Yum! Center. A loss at Virginia Tech. Another at DePaul, one of many few packages supposedly worse off than Louisville. Then, a dwelling loss to Arkansas State. (Not Arkansas. Arkansas State.) Last weekend, a three-game skid was snapped with a win over Pepperdine.
That’s been the story on the courtroom. Off the courtroom, the place has come to really feel like some merciless thought experiment on the long-term results of fatalism. Fans are apoplectic. Program alumni are mortified. New embarrassments appear to come by the week. Most lately, followers went from speaking about why freshman guard Ty-Laur Johnson sat out to begin a recreation as a result of he didn’t have his leggings to questioning what led to junior guard Koron Davis’ dismissal.
Louisville, as one proud former participant places it, is “utterly unrecognizable.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this manner. Payne returned to Louisville in March 2022 as a beloved alum. Beowulf, reclaiming his land to slay the dragons of this program’s current previous — the NCAA, the messy finish of Chris Mack’s tenure, the cloud of Rick Pitino, the sordid headlines, the vacated wins, the darkish days. All that will recede into reminiscence as Louisville returned to glory.
But Payne, who wasn’t made obtainable to The Athletic throughout a current go to, went 4-28 in Year 1. Now he’s 5-6 in Year 2. The negativity surrounding this system is unmatched in faculty basketball. Most of it’s warranted. Some of it’s hyperbolic. Such toxicity turns each missed shot into a manifesto on this system’s future.
What’s most uncomfortable, although, is the seeming common acceptance that sweeping adjustments are a foregone conclusion. That Louisville, working as a bastardized model of a program with 10 Final Fours and three nationwide titles (it doesn’t matter what the NCAA report guide says), is already previous a level of no return with Kenny Payne.
At no time would possibly that be clearer than this Thursday. Everyone is aware of what’s coming. The Yum! is about to flip blue as hundreds of Kentucky followers take over the constructing for the annual rivalry recreation. It shall be a sight nobody can ignore, and the last word query once more shall be requested.
Where do the Cards go from right here?
Touching down on one of many two runways at Bowman Field, the small airport southeast of downtown Louisville, Kenny Payne stepped out of a personal aircraft and into an American dream. It was March 17, 2022. Denny Crum, his former coach, had lived lengthy sufficient to see considered one of his personal inherit his program. The 85-year-old waited on the tarmac alongside Wade Houston, one other Cardinal legend and Payne mentor, each males smiling. Lowering his head, Payne ducked his 6-foot-8 body by way of the aircraft door, inhaled a acquainted air, hugged them each and waved to followers alongside a perimeter fence line.
This is what so many wished. Louisville’s post-Pitino world was considered one of misplaced id. Program alum David Padgett admirably navigated the tumult of 2017-18 as interim coach however wasn’t stylish sufficient to be the school’s long-term choice. Chris Mack was the most popular identify available on the market, so Louisville went and received him. The marriage was hailed nationally as a can’t-miss rent in March 2018. Twenty-one months later, Mack coached the No. 1-ranked Cards to a dwelling win over No. 4 Michigan in entrance of 21,674 packed shoulder-to-shoulder in December 2019.
This was a new period.
Until it wasn’t.
Mack didn’t make it to the top of Year 4 in his seven-year contract, getting pushed out 14 video games into the 2021-22 season amid one other NCAA investigation and participant discontent. Another ugly ending. Another spherical of preposterous headlines. (Seriously, what different program has had two head coaches entangled in extortion instances?)
Many round Louisville say that then-interim athletic director Josh Heird had little alternative within the 2022 teaching search. Trustees, ex-players, boosters — most wished Payne. Louisville is a place the place the streets go backward, the place some loyalists and ex-players are nonetheless upset Crum was compelled into retirement in 2001, and others nonetheless often relitigate Pitino’s numerous trigger célèbres. The school wanted somebody to tie its binds.
Payne, 57, was born and raised in southeast Mississippi however is a son of Louisville. He was a freshman on Crum’s 1986 nationwide championship group. He performed with legends Billy Thompson, Milt Wagner and Pervis Ellison. He led this system to the Sweet 16 in 1988 and ’89. He carried all possible Card credentials and had a teaching résumé to go together with them. Payne honed his recruiting chops for years as an assistant coach at Oregon and Kentucky, then sharpened his teaching prowess with a few seasons within the NBA.
This was the precise man on the proper time for Louisville. More impactfully, Payne stood as the primary Black head coach for a program with a lengthy historical past of racial barrier-breaking. The measurement and scale of his hiring wasn’t misplaced on him.
“It’s bigger than me,” Payne advised The Athletic in October 2022. “That’s the best way to say it: It’s bigger than me. It’s a lot.”
That was solely 14 months in the past.
Today’s model of faculty basketball, with its switch portal and its Name, Image and Likeness jockeying, comes with an inherent stress of assembling expertise as quick as attainable and successful video games now, not later. Louisville noticed Payne as a faucet to a keg of all available expertise. His 10-year tenure at Kentucky turned him into a near-mythic determine. He was essential in touchdown and creating Anthony Davis and different five-star future NBA lottery picks. He coached 9 massive males who had been drafted within the lottery, together with two No. 1 general picks. He was greatest mates with basketball’s final energy dealer — William “Worldwide” Wesley. NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns as soon as referred to as Payne “the horse beneath the jockey driving Kentucky basketball.”
The math was straightforward. If Payne did that at Kentucky, think about what he’d do on his personal horse in Louisville.
Immediately after the hiring, a number of top-rated recruits had been out of the blue rumored to be closely fascinated with Louisville. In May 2022, Payne employed Milt Wagner, his former teammate and U of L luminary, as this system’s director of participant growth and alumni relations. Wagner’s grandson, D.J., occurred to be the No. 1 recruit within the nation on the time.
The flood of expertise to Louisville felt all however imminent.
But issues aren’t so easy.
Payne’s first recruiting class, cobbled collectively late, ranked a respectable twenty sixth within the 247Sports Composite rankings however lacked a top-50 prospect. He mined the portal for 2 items, notably Tennessee switch Brandon Huntley-Hatfield. But it wasn’t sufficient. The Cards’ 2022-23 roster, with a handful of returnees, had 10 scholarship gamers. They gained 4 video games. Losses included an exhibition to Division II Lenoir-Rhyne and regular-season upsets by Bellarmine, Wright State, Appalachian State and Lipscomb. They went 2-18 within the ACC and completed 290th in KenPom’s rankings. The next closest high-major was California at 270.
On prime of the losses, issues soured by way of Year 1 as, one after the other, all that rumored incoming five-star expertise went elsewhere. D.J. Wagner not solely declined Louisville’s scholarship but additionally dedicated to Kentucky.
What’s gone flawed? Theories abound amongst these in grassroots basketball. About Payne spending his total teaching profession at Nike faculties (Oregon and Kentucky) and now being underneath the Adidas umbrella. About Payne and assistant coaches Danny Manning, Nolan Smith and Josh Jamieson not pounding the pavement. Whatever the explanation, the flood hasn’t come.
Seven scholarship gamers entered the switch portal in Payne’s first offseason, together with three captains. Then got here a extra important loss. Trentyn Flowers, a five-star recruit who reclassified to enroll early at Louisville and headlined the Cards’ five-player 2023 recruiting class, opted out of his dedication. He did so after practising with the group for weeks final summer time. A possible starter, Flowers left this system on Aug. 14 and signed with the Adelaide 36ers of the National Basketball League in Australia.
The 2023-24 Louisville roster would characteristic 9 new gamers, together with key sophomore transfers Skyy Clark (Illinois) and Tre White (USC) and a freshman class that, regardless of Flowers’ departure, ranked No. 6 by 247Sports. Most agreed the roster was upgraded.
Eight present Louisville gamers entered faculty as top-100 gamers in 247Sports Composite recruiting rankings. Four of them — Huntley-Hatfield, Dennis Evans, Clark and White — ranked within the prime 50. The Cards are exceedingly younger, although. The roster consists of 9 freshmen and sophomores. Payne’s group ranks 301st within the nation in DI expertise, averaging 1.19 years. The solely different high-major packages with much less expertise are UCLA and Notre Dame.
It was a yr late, however, even with out an inflow of five-stars, that is what Louisville theoretically signed up for with Payne. Accumulate younger expertise, undergo some rising pains, rebuild this system and climb again to the highest of the ACC in a few years.
Luke Hancock, the hero of Louisville’s 2013 nationwide title and now an analyst for ACC Network, says he sees “some pieces of what could be a good team” and wonders, if this group stayed principally intact, grew a yr older, added a prime recruit or two and a couple veteran transfers, what would possibly that appear to be?
“It’s not that I’m grasping at straws here,” Hancock says. “There are real positives. It could be dramatically better going into Year 3. But are Louisville fans going to give them enough time for all that to really come to fruition? It doesn’t seem like it.”
Therein lies the rub. In solely 14 months, issues went so dangerous, so quick, that few are keen to see the place this can go. If this had been Year 1, possibly some could be keen to experience issues out.
But it’s not Year 1.
Losing is one factor. Being embarrassed is one other.
Koron Davis might be seen proper out within the open. Some followers acknowledged the 6-foot-7 guard from this system’s annual preseason scrimmage. Now he was sitting within the Yum! stands.
Nothing made sense. Davis was recruited to bolster the Louisville backcourt. He performed junior faculty ball at Paris (Texas) Community College and Los Angeles Southwest College, and dedicated to the Cards in January 2023 after Payne visited him in LA. He was thought of a good pickup and a potential contributor.
But Davis has by no means suited up for a recreation. Payne delivered cryptic explanations. He mentioned Davis was not in hassle, and was nonetheless a part of the group, however was advised not to come to video games. Rumors swirled that he’d been concerned in a follow confrontation with Payne.
Things turned more odd on Dec. 13. Louisville issued a assertion saying Davis was transferring, marking an abrupt finish to the saga. Except then Davis, who posted a image of his first-semester report card on social media that very same morning, refuted the tweet, saying, “I never asked to transfer.”
I didn’t categorical to anybody at U of Louisville that I wished to switch. I by no means requested to switch. I take pleasure in being a Cardinal. The reality an official assertion was launched giving false info is disheartening and unhappy.
— Koron Davis (@KoronDavis) December 13, 2023
Louisville issued a second launch, this time saying Davis was dismissed from this system.
So what went flawed? In an interview with The Athletic, Davis says the follow on the root of the matter occurred in mid-November. That day, in a post-practice huddle, Payne advised the group Davis bad-mouthed the group. “He told my teammates: ‘Koron said f— all y’all.’” Davis says. “Things escalated from there, but never turned physical.”
In a separate interview with The Athletic, a present Louisville participant, granted anonymity in order to corroborate occasions with out going through repercussions from this system, confirmed Davis’ retelling of the occasion.
Davis’ standing with the group was restricted after that day, however he was nonetheless a part of this system. He maintained entry to amenities, remained enrolled, and performed occasional particular person exercises with coaches. Program sources push again on the thought of a single incident being on the root of Davis’ quasi-suspension, however what’s clear is nobody understood the phrases.
Teammates had been confused. So had been followers and media. And athletic division officers. In an already flamable equation of a coach on the recent seat and a group dropping video games, now got here controversy.
“It was so weird how they handled it,” the present participant says.
Davis requested a assembly with Heird and spoke to the Louisville AD on Dec. 6. Heird, who confirms this assembly, requested Davis if he wished to stay on the school. Davis responded sure. Heird advised Davis he would converse to Payne.
Soon after, in accordance to the present Louisville group member, some gamers met with Payne and the teaching employees. They advocated for Davis to rejoin the group, saying he might be a worthwhile participant. Moreover, they mentioned the drama surrounding the state of affairs was distracting and might be prevented if Davis was allowed to sit on the bench. According to the present participant, coaches responded by once more claiming that Davis had advised them he didn’t care concerning the group and wished to switch.
Nothing was any clearer by the top of Dec. 13. Following the loss to Arkansas State, Payne provided no additional clarification. Two Louisville gamers, Huntley-Hatfield and Clark, mentioned they nonetheless converse to Davis and assist him.
Associate athletic director Zach Greenwell mentioned in a assertion to The Athletic on Wednesday that the college would honor Davis’ scholarship.
“All of our head coaches are empowered to make decisions related to their rosters that they believe are in the best interest of their programs as a whole,” he mentioned. “If Koron Davis wishes to transition from being a student-athlete to a student at the University of Louisville, he is welcome to do so and his scholarship will be honored. Should he choose to continue his basketball career elsewhere, we will support his decision and wish him nothing but the best.”
Davis says he plans to stay enrolled at Louisville next semester, then resolve the place to play in 2024-25.
The dealing with of the state of affairs — from Payne’s puzzling information conferences, to the poor messaging, to the confusion of Dec. 13 — was, in accordance to an athletic division supply, roundly seen as an pointless debacle. While some say Payne felt Davis’ long-term future wasn’t at Louisville and wished to assist him land someplace as a switch, they concurrently acknowledge the ordeal may have been handled extra deftly.
Some felt it marked the primary time Payne’s tenure really embarrassed the school. That this, within the massive image, was an exemplar of a program with broader points.
It’s one other recreation on one other night time on this very uncomfortable time to be a Louisville Cardinal. Attendance is introduced at over 10,000, however fewer than 5,000 dour faces dot the 22,090-seat enviornment. That’s inside. Outside? You understand it’s dangerous when barstools are empty in a city constructed on bourbon.
“We need a better team,” says the overall supervisor of 1 neighboring institution. “We have to get all the (bar) owners on the whole street together to start recruiting some guys.”
The GM doesn’t need his bar named right here. Might be dangerous for enterprise, he says, and enterprise is dangerous sufficient. Real property and working prices close to the downtown enviornment are priced to embrace 18 nights of 15,000-plus crowds coming downtown for Louisville males’s basketball. Right now, the numbers are off.
After years spent ranked among the many most extremely attended groups in faculty basketball, Louisville slipped to twenty second in common attendance final season. Average ticket gross sales had been introduced at 12,497 per recreation, per NCAA data. In 2019-20, the final time issues had been cooking round right here, Louisville introduced a mean crowd of 16,658. That ranked seventh nationally.
But the true drawback is, the Cards aren’t drawing wherever close to what’s being introduced at video games. According to college data requested by The Athletic, final yr’s precise through-the-gates attendance averaged 6,557 per recreation. Only three video games drew over 9,000. The Cards’ extremely profitable girls’s program, using a wave of 5 Elite Eights and two Final Four appearances since 2018, averaged 5,269 per recreation.
This yr is worse for the boys. The first three regular-season dwelling dates drew 16,037, whole. Or 5,435 per recreation. Season ticket gross sales have fallen from 10,501 to 9,099.
These are numbers that put bars out of enterprise and go away resort rooms empty.
They’re numbers that talk to a city lacking a part of its id. Most locations, a first-year homegrown soccer coach (Jeff Brohm) main a program to its first-ever ACC Championship recreation look would occupy all of the oxygen. Here, it’s a good distraction. Louisville is a basketball city. It’s the place this yr the mayor displayed a reproduction 2013 nationwide champion banner on Metro Hall to rejoice its tenth anniversary, since it could’t grasp at Yum! Center as a result of the NCAA vacated the title.
All that zeal doesn’t disappear. It will get repurposed. A harsh shift has occurred from folks supporting Kenny Payne as a individual to folks being so distraught by dropping that it turns private. Everything Payne says is seemingly topic to interpretation and assault. After this season opened with a 71-68 exhibition recreation loss to Kentucky Wesleyan, Payne mentioned, “We can’t beat teams with talent. We’re never going to be the most talented team.” Payne meant his younger group can’t merely present up and anticipate to win, however followers and media pounced on the quote.
After the loss to Indiana, when requested if he anticipated the Hoosiers to shift to a late zone protection, Payne mentioned, “I did not. I knew (Mike Woodson) wouldn’t play zone — or I thought. He tricked me.” Again, the road scorched social media. Yet as of that day, Indiana had performed, per Synergy, 27 possessions of zone protection and 5,781 in man-to-man in three years underneath Woodson. Twelve of these 27 zone possessions got here within the ultimate eight minutes towards Louisville. Payne was justified to not prep for a zone. But all folks heard was a struggling coach say he received tricked.
One program alum residing on the town, who requested anonymity to converse freely, says he dreads stopping at Starbucks for his every day espresso. He geese his head, attempting to be inconspicuous. But that’s unimaginable. He’s immediately acknowledged and the questions come earlier than he can place an order. What will we do about Kenny? How’d it get so dangerous? Who ought to we rent?
Publicly, the ex-player voices assist for Payne and this system. But honestly?
“I think it’s too foregone at this point,” the ex-player mentioned. “‘Sad’ is the word that comes to my mind, you know? By now, I would guess like 95 percent of the fan base has given up on this working. It’s hard to argue. The negativity is overwhelming.”
Multiple alums echoed the sentiment. That they don’t hassle taking a look at social media anymore. They cringe seeing Yum! so barren. They fear concerning the present gamers attempting to navigate one thing they didn’t join.
As Peyton Siva places it, taking part in faculty ball in a city like Louisville is “a gift and a curse.”
“When it’s going good, it’s so great. They show you love,” Siva says. “When it’s going bad, man, there are some people who make it tough.”
Louisville misplaced at dwelling to Arkansas State 75-63 on Dec. 13. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
Heird, the Louisville athletic director, is sitting in an empty follow fitness center related to the Yum! Center. Groans are audible from the sector. Asked the way it’s come to this, he admits that he, too, is attempting to perceive.
“I think that’s the most difficult part of being an athletic director,” he says. “Everything can align to say, ‘This is the one.’ Right? ‘A can’t-miss (hire).’ The example I always use is Scott Frost. Name one person in the country, when he was at UCF, that thought that wasn’t going to work at Nebraska.”
Heird pauses, ready for a solution that doesn’t come.
“There wasn’t one,” he concludes.
Whatever occurs next at Louisville will finally be in Heird’s arms. He’s not a native, however he is aware of the place. He spent 2006 to 2017 within the division, because it expanded and improved wildly underneath former AD Tom Jurich, earlier than spending three years at Villanova. Heird returned as deputy AD underneath Vince Tyra in 2019, earlier than ascending to the highest seat. Now he oversees a division that’s successful in each sport besides the one which issues essentially the most.
Heird is aware of all of the rumors. That he’s supposedly going to hearth Payne if he loses this recreation or that recreation. Heird counters that he would by no means deal with a single outcome as a line of demarcation.
“That’s unrealistic to put on any coach,” he says.
Instead, Heird says, he appears to be like for progress. Even whether it is gradual. Is there progress?
That most likely is determined by how onerous one is keen to look.
It was Heird and Louisville that determined to rent a first-time head coach for one of the vital outstanding jobs in faculty basketball. As one ex-player put it: “They hired KP and got KP. Don’t you have to give him a chance to figure this out?”
Asked if Payne has been given any diploma of grace as a first-time head coach, Heird attracts a lengthy pause.
“No, but I didn’t expect him to, and he didn’t, either,” Heird says. “You’re the head coach of Louisville men’s basketball. Nobody cares that you’re a first-time head coach, you know? Nobody cares.”
Heird says he hasn’t mentioned with Payne any assurance that he’ll make it to the top of this season. It’s on Heird to resolve whether or not this system can afford to give Payne a likelihood at a third season or pay an $8 million buyout to take away him earlier than March 31. The buyout drops to $6 million after that date.
Some see an in-season transfer as an inevitability. That, although, would include its personal issues. What is there to realistically be saved? Who could be a viable interim coach? What’s the hurt in giving Payne a likelihood to salvage … one thing?
Louisville followers, in the meantime, who’ve seen 13 losses to sub-150 KenPom opponents during the last 34 video games, will proceed to await what’s next. They’ll speak about Mick Cronin or Bruce Pearl or Andy Enfield; or Randy Bennett, Sean Miller, Dennis Gates, Chris Beard. Some will dream the last word desires — Billy Donovan or Jay Wright. Still, another Card followers, albeit a few, will maintain out hope that the reply remains to be proper in entrance of them.
As for Payne, he advised reporters final week that he doesn’t spend time interested by his job safety. He coaches for the gamers and the group, he mentioned, not himself.
“I learned at an early age,” Payne mentioned, “that if you’re motivated by the critics, or if you’re motivated by praise, you’ll set yourself up to be heartbroken.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; picture: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
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