LOUISVILLE — Kenny Payne gave the impression of a person on the lookout for hope in a tough actuality. His Louisville basketball workforce got here shut, so painstakingly shut, to lastly doing it — profitable 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, looks 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 supplied a realizing gaze. “It’s solely going to get higher,” he stated. “It’s not going to worsen.”
It was troublesome to think about then how unsuitable he was.
The Playing cards misplaced to Indiana the following day. Then, uncomfortable residence wins over New Mexico State and Bellarmine in a near-empty KFC Yum! Middle. A loss at Virginia Tech. One other at DePaul, one of many few packages 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 courtroom. Off the courtroom, 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 just 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 “totally unrecognizable.”
It wasn’t purported to be this fashion. 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 might recede into reminiscence as Louisville returned to glory.
However Payne, who wasn’t made accessible 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 school 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 adjustments are a foregone conclusion. That Louisville, working as a bastardized model of a program with 10 Remaining Fours and three nationwide titles (it doesn’t matter what the NCAA document 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 shall be requested.
The place do the Playing cards go from right here?
Touching down on one of many two runways at Bowman Subject, the small airport southeast of downtown Louisville, Kenny Payne stepped out of a non-public airplane and into an American dream. It was March 17, 2022. Denny Crum, his former coach, had lived lengthy sufficient to see certainly 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. Decreasing his head, Payne ducked his 6-foot-8 body via the airplane door, inhaled a well-known 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 certainly one of misplaced identification. Program alum David Padgett admirably navigated the tumult of 2017-18 as interim coach however wasn’t stylish sufficient to be the college’s long-term possibility. Chris Mack was the most well liked identify available on the market, so Louisville went and obtained 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 circumstances?)
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 repeatedly relitigate Pitino’s varied trigger célèbres. The varsity 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 workforce. 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 precise man on the proper time for Louisville. Extra impactfully, Payne stood as the primary Black head coach for a program with a protracted historical past of racial barrier-breaking. The scale and scale of his hiring wasn’t misplaced on him.
“It’s greater than me,” Payne instructed The Athletic in October 2022. “That’s the easiest way to say it: It’s greater than me. It’s quite a bit.”
That was solely 14 months in the past.
Immediately’s model of school 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 profitable 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 vital 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 total picks. He was greatest buddies with basketball’s final energy dealer — 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 simple. 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 out of the blue rumored to be closely keen on Louisville. In Could 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. Nevertheless 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 subsequent closest high-major was California at 270.
On high of the losses, issues soured via 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 unsuitable? 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. Regardless of the cause, 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 working towards with the workforce for weeks final summer season. 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 school 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 consists of 9 freshmen and sophomores. Payne’s workforce ranks 301st within the nation in DI expertise, averaging 1.19 years. The one 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 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 an excellent workforce” 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 appear 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 offer them sufficient time for all that to actually come to fruition? It doesn’t appear to be it.”
Therein lies the rub. In solely 14 months, issues went so unhealthy, so quick, that few are prepared to see the place it will go. If this had been 12 months 1, possibly some could be prepared 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 school ball at Paris (Texas) Group School and Los Angeles Southwest School, and dedicated to the Playing cards in January 2023 after Payne visited him in LA. He was thought of a pleasant pickup and a possible contributor.
However Davis has by no means suited up for a recreation. Payne delivered cryptic explanations. He stated Davis was not in bother, and was nonetheless a part of the workforce, however was instructed to not come to video games. Rumors swirled that he’d been concerned in a follow 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 specific 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 very 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 unsuitable? 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 instructed the group Davis bad-mouthed the workforce. “He instructed my teammates: ‘Koron stated 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 going through repercussions from this system, confirmed Davis’ retelling of the occasion.
Davis’ standing with the workforce was restricted after that day, however he was nonetheless a part of this system. He maintained entry to amenities, remained enrolled, and carried out 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 workforce 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 instructed Davis he would communicate to Payne.
Quickly after, in response to the present Louisville workforce member, some gamers met with Payne and the teaching workers. They advocated for Davis to rejoin the workforce, saying he may very well be a precious participant. Furthermore, they stated 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. In keeping with the present participant, coaches responded by once more claiming that Davis had instructed them he didn’t care in regards to the workforce and needed to switch.
Nothing was any clearer by the top of Dec. 13. Following the loss to Arkansas State, Payne supplied no additional rationalization. Two Louisville gamers, Huntley-Hatfield and Clark, stated they nonetheless communicate to Davis and help him.
Affiliate athletic director Zach Greenwell stated in an announcement to The Athletic on Wednesday that the college would honor Davis’ scholarship.
“All of our head coaches are empowered to make selections associated to their rosters that they consider are in the perfect curiosity of their packages as an entire,” he stated. “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 shall be honored. Ought to he select to proceed his basketball profession elsewhere, we are going to help his determination and need him nothing however the perfect.”
Davis says he plans to stay enrolled at Louisville subsequent 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 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 may have been handled extra deftly.
Some felt it marked the primary time Payne’s tenure really embarrassed the college. 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? it’s unhealthy when barstools are empty in a metropolis constructed on bourbon.
“We want a greater workforce,” says the overall supervisor of 1 neighboring institution. “Now we have to get all of the (bar) homeowners on the entire avenue collectively to begin recruiting some guys.”
The GM doesn’t need his bar named right here. May be unhealthy for enterprise, he says, and enterprise is unhealthy 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 school 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 true drawback is, the Playing cards aren’t drawing anyplace close to what’s being introduced at video games. In keeping with 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 girls’s program, using a wave of 5 Elite Eights and two Remaining 4 appearances since 2018, averaged 5,269 per recreation.
This yr is worse for the lads. The primary three regular-season residence dates drew 16,037, complete. 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 lodge 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 duplicate 2013 nationwide champion banner on Metro Corridor to have fun its tenth anniversary, since it could possibly’t cling at Yum! Middle as a result of the NCAA vacated the title.
All that keenness 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. Every thing Payne says is seemingly topic to interpretation and assault. After this season opened with a 71-68 exhibition recreation loss to Kentucky Wesleyan, Payne stated, “We will’t beat groups with expertise. We’re by no means going to be probably the most proficient workforce.” Payne meant his younger workforce can’t merely present up and count on 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 stated, “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 underneath Woodson. Twelve of these 27 zone possessions got here within the last eight minutes in opposition to Louisville. Payne was justified to not prep for a zone. However all folks heard was a struggling coach say he obtained tricked.
One program alum dwelling on the town, who requested anonymity to talk freely, says he dreads stopping at Starbucks for his each day espresso. He geese his head, making an attempt to be inconspicuous. However that’s unattainable. 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 unhealthy? 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 stated. “‘Unhappy’ is the phrase that involves my thoughts, you understand? By now, I’d guess like 95 % 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 hassle 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 school 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 unhealthy, man, there are some individuals who make it powerful.”
Louisville misplaced at residence to Arkansas State 75-63 on Dec. 13. (Andy Lyons / Getty Pictures)
Heird, the Louisville athletic director, is sitting in an empty follow gymnasium linked to the Yum! Middle. 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. “Every thing can align to say, ‘That is the one.’ Proper? ‘A can’t-miss (rent).’ The instance I all the time 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 finally be in Heird’s fingers. 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 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 profitable 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 fireplace Payne if he loses this recreation or that recreation. Heird counters that he would by no means deal with a single end result as a line of demarcation.
“That’s unrealistic to placed on any coach,” he says.
As a substitute, Heird says, he seems for progress. Even whether it is gradual. Is there progress?
That in all probability relies on how laborious one is prepared to look.
It was Heird and Louisville that determined to rent a first-time head coach for some of the outstanding jobs in school basketball. As one ex-player put it: “They employed KP and obtained KP. Don’t you need to 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 a protracted pause.
“No, however I didn’t count on 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 understand? 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 resolve whether or not this system can afford to offer 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 over the past 34 video games, will proceed to attend for what’s subsequent. They’ll discuss 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. 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 instructed reporters final week that he doesn’t spend time serious about his job safety. He coaches for the gamers and the neighborhood, he stated, not himself.
“I discovered at an early age,” Payne stated, “that for those who’re motivated by the critics, or for those who’re motivated by reward, you’ll set your self as much as be heartbroken.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photograph: Andy Lyons / Getty Pictures)