Report: Louisville expected to part ways with Kenny Payne

Louisville is set to move on from head coach Kenny Payne after just two seasons, The Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman reported. The news comes after the Cardinals suffered their 24th loss of the season in the first round of the ACC Tournament.

Historic lows for the program under the Payne regime included a four-win season in 2022 that saw the Cardinals finish 2-18 in conference play, and that’s just what is on paper. The 2023 campaign wasn’t much better as Louisville finished with an 8-24 overall record and a 3-17 mark in ACC action, leading the school to part ways with its national championship-winning alum.

Payne was brought into the program after spending a season as an assistant for the New York Knicks and was treated as a returning hero by the university, athletic department and boosters upon his arrival. However, Cracks were already beginning to show when Louisville lost to Lenoir-Rhyne by double digits during Payne’s first public outing as head coach. While it was a preseason exhibition, things were not going to get better.

A season-opening win against Chaminade was a hopeful start, but that ended up being the highest high led way to nine consecutive losses to begin the Kenny Payne era.

Things were looking up with two-straight wins over Western Kentucky and Florida A&M, respectively, but Louisville would go on to lose its next 10 games after that. Losing streaks of four and five each followed as Louisville finished 4-28 under the then first-year head coach.

2023 started out equally disappointing with another preseason loss, this time to in-state foe Kentucky Wesleyan. Again, they ended up impressing with 94 points scored in a one-point win over UMBC. Losses to a ranked Texas team by one, an overtime win over New Mexico State — and a get-back win over Bellarmine, who defeated UL in 2022 — highlighted the early portion of Payne’s second season. Three consecutive losses later, nothing was going right for the Cardinals under their current leadership.

Things became so jumbled that the team even announced that guard Koron Davis would be entering the transfer portal — a report which Davis publicly denied almost immediately after it was brought up. Now, he has been dismissed from the team but was seen in the stands during Louisville’s game that same night against Arkansas State — which ended up as a 12-point Red Wolves win.

Rumors swirled about a change coming in December as Louisville took a 5-7 record into the new year. However, Cardinals athletics director Josh Heird reaffirmed the commitment to Payne through the end of the season. UL went 3-17 the rest of the way.

That’s just one of the many head-scratching situations that came up during the Kenny Payne era in Louisville. Payne is sure to find a new coaching job in the near future, as he was known to be a prolific developmental coach for the Knicks and Kentucky, his previous stop before the NBA.

Nick Schultz contributed to this report.