Kenny Payne addresses Louisville's commitment in tough season

With the Louisville Cardinals continuing to struggle on the season in a rough way, coach Kenny Payne addressed the commitment of his players. The Cardinals fell to Notre Dame on Saturday, falling down by as many as 30 points on the way to a record of 2-19 on the season.

According to Payne however, his players told him that they weren’t giving up on the year — even if their coach believes their actions aren’t matching their words currently.

Kenny Payne on Louisville’s season struggles

“You know, I’m not the guy to keep elephants in the room,” said Payne when asked about his team’s commitment level. “For me if I smell it, if I think it, if I hear about it I’m breaking it up and you know, after the game I asked them ‘is this too much? Do you think like you’ve let go?’

“To a man, they all say no. But I said then you’re misinformed on what your body’s saying versus what your words are saying. There are times when we have players that you look at with the eye, and you see that they look like they’ve given up. But in their mind they don’t believe they look like that. Well that’s a problem. And we address that problem.”

Despite clearly being frustrated with his team’s effort on the court, Payne quickly explained that he believes his team isn’t giving up yet. He only wants to highlight that the result of the year so far does not match what the expectations are for the Louisville basketball program.

“So am I saying that they’ve given up? No, I don’t believe they’ve given up. I just think this is hard. I think that for some of these guys this is new. Instead of just playing basketball, we’re trying to get you to play winning basketball. And if you don’t have the capacity to fight through it mentally focused and anticipate what’s going on… and understand game plans and understand the plays and know the plays and know the discipline just to set a simple ball screen. And what you do after you set the screen.

“There’s a lot to this and we have guys that are still struggling to grasp it. I love them. I love them and I want them to get it. And I’m not letting go. If they have a tendency or if there’s a thought of giving up. then this will become torture. Because we’re going to practice a certain way and I’m going to demand that you play a certain way.”