Kenny Payne makes case to return as Louisville head coach, calls out doubters

Louisville‘s season came to an end on Tuesday evening when it suffered a 94-85 defeat at the hands of NC State in the opening round of the 2024 ACC Tournament, immediately shifting the focus to the status of Louisville head coach Kenny Payne.

Payne is fully on the hot seat after enduring two of the most challenging seasons in school history. But he has not yet heard anything about his status going forward.

“No I have not,” Payne said, asked directly by reporters following the game against the Wolfpack.

The crux of the matter is that Louisville simply hasn’t won enough during Payne’s tenure. The Cardinals are just 12-52 overall in those two years, with a 5-35 mark in conference play.

Payne, though, pointed to bigger systemic issues within the program as the reasons for his lack of success when asked to make a case for himself to remain as the program’s head coach going into the 2024-25 season.

“For me, I go back to Day 1 and it’s unfortunate that we’re talking about this right now,” Kenny Payne said. “When I walked into the program as the new head coach, I talked about I needed everybody on the same page. We sort of forgot that. I talked about how I’m not going to let you blame me. I’m not standing up here by myself. I need all of Louisville with me. We sort of forgot that. I talked about it’s going to take time and I’m going to watch and see who jumps on and off the Titanic. We sort of forgot that. I talked about, I gave a specific time, I said three or four years, and I’m good with it. That’s what I believed at that time and that’s what I still believe it takes to fix this program.”

While Louisville didn’t win very quickly this year, it did show positive improvement from a year ago. Payne pointed to that as evidence he has begun to build the kind of foundation he needs to be more successful going forward.

Whether he’ll get that chance remains to be seen.

“Like I said, with guys like this you have a foundation,” Kenny Payne said. “Brandon Hatfield, Mike James, JJ Traynor, the young guys that we have, we have a foundation. Whether I’m the coach or not I can look in the mirror and say I gave it everything I had to help this program. I love Louisville. I played here. I won a national championship here. This is not a job for me.”

Payne did harp on the constant negativity surrounding his program, bemoaning it as a hindrance to building a quality squad.

“Contrary to those who criticize, I don’t sleep at night thinking about my brothers, the former players that played here who had no access to the program,” he said. “Should not be talking about this right now, but I have to say this. These young men, to play in a program where there’s so much scrutiny, is unfair to them.

“They deserve to play in a program where people are uplifting them to be better, not fighting and tearing them down to make them question how good they are. Then you make my job impossible. That’s enough about that from me. I mean you should be talking to this young man (Skyy Clark) about the game he just played. Was that your career high? C’mon guys.”

Clark did indeed finish with a career high 36 points in the loss to NC State. But, again, all eyes remain on Kenny Payne and his future with the program following a second trying season.