Kenny Payne on halftime adjustments: ‘I’m throwing everything I can up on the wall’

Now in his second season as the head coach at Louisville, Kenny Payne knows that the Cardinals need to be better at halftime adjustments. In fact, he’s trying everything he can to make those adjustments.

Following Louisville’s 69-52 loss to Virginia on Saturday, Payne offered some insight into his approach to halftime adjustments.

“No question, I am trying to make the adjustment,” Kenny Payne said. “Okay, you’re not understanding. Maybe we got to a different type of offense where we move the ball first for a while. Again we do something different. Defensively, we may have to go more zone. I’m throwing everything I can on the wall.”

Interestingly, Louisville actually did outscore Virginia in the second half of the game, 39-28. The problem is that the score was 41-13 in favor of the Cavaliers going into halftime.

“I’m trying to challenge guys to be better. You know, example, how can a Tre White play 28 minutes and get no rebounds? We can’t win. You have to have a better game for this team to win. You’re one of our better players. One of our best players. You can’t have these types of games. You have to make an impact on the winning and losing of our team. We need you to make the impact on winning.”

Prior to the Virginia game, Louisville had been outscored in their last two second halves. Including the loss to Virginia, Louisville has now dropped five games in a row and eight of their last nine games.

Kenny Payne and Louisville will look to get back on track on Tuesday with a road trip to Clemson.

Kenny Payne ‘embarrassed’ by Louisville performance vs. Virginia

Ultimately, Kenny Payne admitted that he was embarrassed by Louisville’s performance against Virginia.

“For me, just keep plugging away, man. We’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep plugging away. We’re going to keep pushing them. We’re going to keep loving them. I love this team. I love these kids. I think they can figure it out. I think they’ve gotten better. I’m in no way discouraged. I’m embarrassed, because I don’t want to lose, I don’t want them to lose. I want them to succeed, I want them to overcome their barriers. I want them to overcome their fears,” Payne said.

“And a lot of this is, they got to get through it. So you got to go through it. It’s not going to be easy. We’ve had a lot of quote unquote ‘bad luck.’ We don’t have Dennis Evans, we don’t have JJ Traynor, who’s a starter averaging in 10 [points] and six [rebounds]. Look, there a lot of things that have happened, but that’s not an excuse for for us going out and trying to win games and playing to win and playing winning basketball.”