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Kenny Payne’s brief Louisville basketball coaching tenure was defined by these 5 moments
The time of Kenny Payne is gone. And in the annals of contemporary Louisville men’s basketball history, it will rank among the least fruitful.
Payne, 57, departing his alma institution with a 12-52 record, was let go by U of L on Wednesday.
Over the course of his two seasons patrolling the sideline at the KFC Yum! Center, Payne’s history with the Cardinals has become more complex, despite the fact that as a rookie he helped Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum’s 1986 team win a national championship.
Following consecutive 13-win seasons, the most recent of which put an end to the Chris Mack era, Louisville finished Payne’s first year with just four wins and a program-high 28 losses. It finished 2022–23 with no road wins, which is a first since 1939–40. In terms of adjusted efficiency (-9.85), it was placed 290th out of all Power Five teams on KenPom.com.
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These five incidents summed up Kenny Payne’s brief time as the basketball coach at Louisville.
When Payne was finally presented as Mack’s replacement and the program’s first Black head coach in March 2022, he emphasized patience with his rebuild. He revealed to reporters this past summer that he “inherited something that was broken, or I never would have gotten the job.”
“That’s something we all get, right?” he questioned. “Hopefully.”
But Payne could not fit the parts together quickly enough.
Here are five instances that shaped his tenure:
October 30, 2022: Lenoir-Rhyne exhibition loss marks the beginning of the Kenny Payne era.
It was a hint of things to come when Louisville’s 39-game winning streak in exhibition games was broken by a Division II opponent in Payne’s head coaching debut.
The 57-47 triumph for Lenoir-Rhyne wasn’t an accident. The Bears, who were missing their two best returning players, shot 35.7% from the field and made 7 of their 28 3-point tries.
U of L performed far worse, shooting 29.2% overall, giving up 16 turnovers, and scoring just 19 points in the second half.
Payne acknowledged his old teammate, Lenoir-Rhyne coach Everick Sullivan, with a tip of the cap after the final buzzer, stating that the Cards “needed this loss, because there’s something that happened to this program before I got here that hasn’t been healed yet.” I’m trying to help them overcome it, battle through it, and get better—first as individuals, not as a team. We may then discuss how to work well as a team.
“You can’t worry about a team or an opponent until you overcome your own obstacles,” he continued. That’s the life lesson. How can I possibly worry about the guys I’m fighting beside if I’m depressed? I’m feeling down. How can I care about anybody else if I’m in pain and without self-assurance? That is the battle we are engaged in.”
After defeating Chaminade to close exhibition play, Louisville recovered and collapsed. It began the catastrophic 2022–23 season with a nine-game losing streak, the first three of which were decided by one point apiece.
That October night, long after Payne had fallen to Lenoir-Rhyne, the “black cloud” persisted. At the Yum! Center, history was repeated one year.
In the Great Midwest Athletic preseason poll, Kentucky Wesleyan was ranked eighth out of 13 teams. Despite this, the squad outperformed the Cards in the paint and in the closing minutes, winning 71-68 in an exhibition game that marked the team’s first series win since 1958.
