LOUISVILLE — Kenny Payne seemed like a person searching for hope in a tough actuality. His Louisville basketball staff got here shut, so painstakingly shut, to lastly doing it — successful a type of video games upon which corners are turned. As a substitute, 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 Sq. Backyard. There was a sure optimism to him that Sunday afternoon. He nodded and provided a realizing gaze. “It’s solely going to get higher,” he mentioned. “It’s not going to worsen.”
It was troublesome to think about then how flawed he was.
The Playing cards misplaced to Indiana the following day. Then, uncomfortable dwelling wins over New Mexico State and Bellarmine in a near-empty KFC Yum! Heart. A loss at Virginia Tech. One other at DePaul, one of many few applications supposedly worse off than Louisville. Then, a house loss to Arkansas State. (Not Arkansas. Arkansas State.) Final weekend, a three-game skid was snapped with a win over Pepperdine.
That’s been the story on the court docket. Off the court docket, the place has come to really feel like some merciless thought experiment on the long-term results of fatalism. Followers are apoplectic. Program alumni are mortified. New embarrassments appear to return by the week. Most lately, followers went from speaking about why freshman guard Ty-Laur Johnson sat out to start out a recreation because 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 “totally unrecognizable.”
It wasn’t alleged 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 latest 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 may recede into reminiscence as Louisville returned to glory.
However Payne, who wasn’t made out there to The Athletic throughout a latest go to, went 4-28 in 12 months 1. Now he’s 5-6 in 12 months 2. The negativity surrounding this system is unmatched in faculty basketball. Most of it’s warranted. A few of it’s hyperbolic. Such toxicity turns each missed shot right into a manifesto on this system’s future.
What’s most uncomfortable, although, is the seeming common acceptance that sweeping modifications are a foregone conclusion. That Louisville, working as a bastardized model of a program with 10 Ultimate Fours and three nationwide titles (it doesn’t matter what the NCAA report e book says), is already previous a degree of no return with Kenny Payne.
At no time would possibly that be clearer than this Thursday. Everybody is aware of what’s coming. The Yum! is about to show blue as 1000’s of Kentucky followers take over the constructing for the annual rivalry recreation. Will probably be a sight nobody can ignore, and the last word query once more will probably be requested.
The place do the Playing cards go from right here?
Touching down on one of many two runways at Bowman Discipline, the small airport southeast of downtown Louisville, Kenny Payne stepped out of a non-public aircraft and into an American dream. It was March 17, 2022. Denny Crum, his former coach, had lived lengthy sufficient to see one among 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. Reducing his head, Payne ducked his 6-foot-8 body by means of the aircraft door, inhaled a well-recognized air, hugged them each and waved to followers alongside a fringe fence line.
That is what so many needed. Louisville’s post-Pitino world was one among misplaced identification. Program alum David Padgett admirably navigated the tumult of 2017-18 as interim coach however wasn’t stylish sufficient to be the varsity’s long-term choice. Chris Mack was the most well liked title in the marketplace, so Louisville went and bought him. The wedding was hailed nationally as a can’t-miss rent in March 2018. Twenty-one months later, Mack coached the No. 1-ranked Playing cards to a house win over No. 4 Michigan in entrance of 21,674 packed shoulder-to-shoulder in December 2019.
This was a brand new period.
Till it wasn’t.
Mack didn’t make it to the top of 12 months 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. One other ugly ending. One other spherical of preposterous headlines. (Significantly, 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 selection within the 2022 teaching search. Trustees, ex-players, boosters — most needed Payne. Louisville is a spot the place the streets go backward, the place some loyalists and ex-players are nonetheless upset Crum was pressured into retirement in 2001, and others nonetheless recurrently relitigate Pitino’s numerous trigger célèbres. The college 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 staff. He performed with legends Billy Thompson, Milt Wagner and Pervis Ellison. He led this system to the Candy 16 in 1988 and ’89. He carried all conceivable Card credentials and had a training résumé to go along with them. Payne honed his recruiting chops for years as an assistant coach at Oregon and Kentucky, then sharpened his teaching prowess with just a few seasons within the NBA.
This was the proper man on the proper time for Louisville. Extra impactfully, Payne stood as the primary Black head coach for a program with an extended historical past of racial barrier-breaking. The scale and scale of his hiring wasn’t misplaced on him.
“It’s larger than me,” Payne informed The Athletic in October 2022. “That’s one of the simplest ways to say it: It’s larger than me. It’s rather a lot.”
That was solely 14 months in the past.
Immediately’s model of faculty basketball, with its switch portal and its Title, Picture and Likeness jockeying, comes with an inherent stress of assembling expertise as quick as doable 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 right 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 finest mates with basketball’s ultimate power broker — William “Worldwide” Wesley. NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Cities as soon as referred to as Payne “the horse beneath the jockey driving Kentucky basketball.”
The mathematics was straightforward. If Payne did that at Kentucky, think about what he’d do on his personal horse in Louisville.
Instantly after the hiring, a number of top-rated recruits had been immediately rumored to be closely fascinated by Louisville. In Might 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.
However issues aren’t so easy.
Payne’s first recruiting class, cobbled collectively late, ranked a good 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. However it wasn’t sufficient. The Playing 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 following closest high-major was California at 270.
On high of the losses, issues soured by means of 12 months 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 in addition dedicated to Kentucky.
What’s gone flawed? Theories abound amongst these in grassroots basketball. About Payne spending his total teaching profession at Nike colleges (Oregon and Kentucky) and now being beneath the Adidas umbrella. About Payne and assistant coaches Danny Manning, Nolan Smith and Josh Jamieson not pounding the pavement. Regardless of the purpose, 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 vital loss. Trentyn Flowers, a five-star recruit who reclassified to enroll early at Louisville and headlined the Playing cards’ five-player 2023 recruiting class, opted out of his dedication. He did so after training with the staff for weeks final summer time. A possible starter, Flowers left this system on Aug. 14 and signed with the Adelaide 36ers of the Nationwide 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. 4 of them — Huntley-Hatfield, Dennis Evans, Clark and White — ranked within the high 50. The Playing cards are exceedingly younger, although. The roster contains 9 freshmen and sophomores. Payne’s staff ranks 301st within the nation in DI expertise, averaging 1.19 years. The one different high-major applications 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 just a few years.
Luke Hancock, the hero of Louisville’s 2013 nationwide title and now an analyst for ACC Community, says he sees “some items of what may very well be a superb staff” and wonders, if this group stayed principally intact, grew a yr older, added a high recruit or two and a pair veteran transfers, what would possibly that seem like?
“It’s not that I’m greedy at straws right here,” Hancock says. “There are actual positives. It may very well be dramatically higher going into 12 months 3. However are Louisville followers going to provide them sufficient time for all that to essentially come to fruition? It doesn’t seem to be it.”
Therein lies the rub. In solely 14 months, issues went so dangerous, so quick, that few are keen to see the place this may go. If this had been 12 months 1, perhaps some could be keen to experience issues out.
However it’s not 12 months 1.
Dropping is one factor. Being embarrassed is one other.
Koron Davis may very well 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) Group Faculty and Los Angeles Southwest Faculty, and dedicated to the Playing cards in January 2023 after Payne visited him in LA. He was thought-about a pleasant pickup and a possible contributor.
However 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 staff, however was informed to not come to video games. Rumors swirled that he’d been concerned in a observe confrontation with Payne.
Issues turned more unusual on Dec. 13. Louisville issued an announcement saying Davis was transferring, marking an abrupt finish to the saga. Besides then Davis, who posted an image of his first-semester report card on social media that very same morning, refuted the tweet, saying, “I by no means requested to switch.”
I didn’t categorical to anybody at U of Louisville that I needed to switch. I by no means requested to switch. I get pleasure from being a Cardinal. The actual fact an official assertion was launched giving false data 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 observe on the root of the matter occurred in mid-November. That day, in a post-practice huddle, Payne informed the group Davis bad-mouthed the staff. “He informed my teammates: ‘Koron mentioned f— all y’all.’” Davis says. “Issues escalated from there, however by no means turned bodily.”
In a separate interview with The Athletic, a present Louisville participant, granted anonymity in order to corroborate occasions with out dealing with repercussions from this system, confirmed Davis’ retelling of the occasion.
Davis’ standing with the staff was restricted after that day, however he was nonetheless a part of this system. He maintained entry to services, 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 staff dropping video games, now got here controversy.
“It was so bizarre how they dealt with it,” the present participant says.
Davis requested a gathering with Heird and spoke to the Louisville AD on Dec. 6. Heird, who confirms this assembly, requested Davis if he needed to stay on the faculty. Davis responded sure. Heird informed Davis he would communicate to Payne.
Quickly after, in response to the present Louisville staff member, some gamers met with Payne and the teaching workers. They advocated for Davis to rejoin the staff, saying he may very well be a helpful participant. Furthermore, they mentioned the drama surrounding the state of affairs was distracting and may very well be averted if Davis was allowed to sit down on the bench. Based on the present participant, coaches responded by once more claiming that Davis had informed them he didn’t care in regards to the staff and needed 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 communicate to Davis and help him.
Affiliate athletic director Zach Greenwell mentioned in an announcement to The Athletic on Wednesday that the college would honor Davis’ scholarship.
“All of our head coaches are empowered to make choices associated to their rosters that they imagine are in one of the best curiosity of their applications as a complete,” he mentioned. “If Koron Davis needs to transition from being a student-athlete to a scholar on the College of Louisville, he’s welcome to take action and his scholarship will probably be honored. Ought to he select to proceed his basketball profession elsewhere, we’ll help his resolution and need him nothing however one of the best.”
Davis says he plans to stay enrolled at Louisville subsequent semester, then determine 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 response to an athletic division supply, roundly seen as an pointless debacle. Whereas some say Payne felt Davis’ long-term future wasn’t at Louisville and needed to assist him land someplace as a switch, they concurrently acknowledge the ordeal might have been handled extra deftly.
Some felt it marked the primary time Payne’s tenure truly embarrassed the varsity. That this, within the massive image, was an exemplar of a program with broader points.
It’s one other recreation on one other evening 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 area. That’s inside. Exterior? You understand it’s dangerous when barstools are empty in a metropolis constructed on bourbon.
“We’d like a greater staff,” says the overall supervisor of 1 neighboring institution. “We have now to get all of the (bar) house owners on the entire avenue collectively to start out recruiting some guys.”
The GM doesn’t need his bar named right here. May be dangerous for enterprise, he says, and enterprise is dangerous sufficient. Actual property and working prices close to the downtown area are priced to incorporate 18 nights of 15,000-plus crowds coming downtown for Louisville males’s basketball. Proper 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. Common 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 median crowd of 16,658. That ranked seventh nationally.
However the actual downside is, the Playing cards aren’t drawing anyplace close to what’s being introduced at video games. Based on college data requested by The Athletic, final yr’s precise through-the-gates attendance averaged 6,557 per recreation. Solely three video games drew over 9,000. The Playing cards’ extremely profitable ladies’s program, using a wave of 5 Elite Eights and two Ultimate 4 appearances since 2018, averaged 5,269 per recreation.
This yr is worse for the lads. The primary 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 metropolis lacking a part of its identification. 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. Right here, it’s a pleasant distraction. Louisville is a basketball city. It’s the place this yr the mayor displayed a reproduction 2013 nationwide champion banner on Metro Corridor to have fun its tenth anniversary, since it will possibly’t hold at Yum! Heart 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 an individual to folks being so distraught by dropping that it turns private. The whole lot 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 will’t beat groups with expertise. We’re by no means going to be probably the most proficient staff.” Payne meant his younger staff 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 didn’t. I knew (Mike Woodson) wouldn’t play zone — or I believed. He tricked me.” Once more, the road scorched social media. But as of that day, Indiana had performed, per Synergy, 27 possessions of zone protection and 5,781 in man-to-man in three years beneath 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. However all folks heard was a struggling coach say he bought tricked.
One program alum residing on the town, who requested anonymity to talk freely, says he dreads stopping at Starbucks for his day by day espresso. He geese his head, making an attempt to be inconspicuous. However that’s inconceivable. He’s immediately acknowledged and the questions come earlier than he can place an order. What can we do about Kenny? How’d it get so dangerous? Who ought to we rent?
Publicly, the ex-player voices help for Payne and this system. However honestly?
“I feel it’s too foregone at this level,” the ex-player mentioned. “‘Unhappy’ is the phrase that involves my thoughts, you already know? By now, I might guess like 95 p.c of the fan base has given up on this working. It’s laborious to argue. The negativity is overwhelming.”
A number of alums echoed the sentiment. That they don’t trouble taking a look at social media anymore. They cringe seeing Yum! so barren. They fear in regards to the present gamers making an attempt 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 present and a curse.”
“When it’s going good, it’s so nice. They present you like,” Siva says. “When it’s going dangerous, man, there are some individuals who make it robust.”
Louisville misplaced at dwelling to Arkansas State 75-63 on Dec. 13. (Andy Lyons / Getty Pictures)
Heird, the Louisville athletic director, is sitting in an empty observe gymnasium related to the Yum! Heart. Groans are audible from the sector. Requested the way it’s come to this, he admits that he, too, is making an attempt to know.
“I feel that’s probably the most troublesome a part of being an athletic director,” he says. “The whole lot can align to say, ‘That is the one.’ Proper? ‘A can’t-miss (rent).’ The instance I at all times use is Scott Frost. Title one individual within the nation, 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.
No matter occurs subsequent at Louisville will in the end be in Heird’s palms. He’s not a local, however he is aware of the place. He spent 2006 to 2017 within the division, because it expanded and improved wildly beneath former AD Tom Jurich, earlier than spending three years at Villanova. Heird returned as deputy AD beneath 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 probably the most.
Heird is aware of all of the rumors. That he’s supposedly going to fireside 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 placed on any coach,” he says.
As a substitute, Heird says, he appears for progress. Even whether it is gradual. Is there progress?
That in all probability will depend on how laborious one is keen to look.
It was Heird and Louisville that determined to rent a first-time head coach for probably the most distinguished jobs in faculty basketball. As one ex-player put it: “They employed KP and bought KP. Don’t you must give him an opportunity to determine this out?”
Requested if Payne has been given any diploma of grace as a first-time head coach, Heird attracts an extended pause.
“No, however I didn’t anticipate him to, and he didn’t, both,” Heird says. “You’re the top coach of Louisville males’s basketball. No one cares that you simply’re a first-time head coach, you already know? No one 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 determine whether or not this system can afford to provide Payne an opportunity at a 3rd 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’s there to realistically be saved? Who could be a viable interim coach? What’s the hurt in giving Payne an opportunity 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 attend for what’s subsequent. 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 goals — Billy Donovan or Jay Wright. Nonetheless, another Card followers, albeit just a few, will maintain out hope that the reply remains to be proper in entrance of them.
As for Payne, he informed reporters final week that he doesn’t spend time fascinated by his job safety. He coaches for the gamers and the group, he mentioned, not himself.
“I discovered at an early age,” Payne mentioned, “that when you’re motivated by the critics, or when you’re motivated by reward, you’ll set your self as much as be heartbroken.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; picture: Andy Lyons / Getty Pictures)
