Kenny Payne on his job security: 'I'm not really worried'

Louisville sits dead last in the ACC Standings after dropping Wednesday’s game against Notre Dame 72-50. The Cardinals have won eight games this season and are 3-13 in conference play.

Despite this, head coach Kenny Payne isn’t worried about where his job stands at this point in the season, he revealed during his postgame press conference.

“I’m not really worried about my job security. I’m worried about how do I get these guys to play better,” Payne said, via WDRB’s Eric Crawford. “My mentality is that I want to win every day. I want to win tomorrow in practice. I want to win tomorrow in the film session. I want to do the things to help these young players get to where they need to get to. I want them to become a better team.”

Payne was asked why he believe this ship can be turned around, despite the Cardinals being on the verge of losing their 20th game of the season. He cited his team’s belief “in what we do,” but admitted his team isn’t perfect.

“I think they care about the city, the community, this university. I think they want to make people proud,” Payne continued. “… “I have no doubt about it getting turned around. But I’ve been doing this a long time, so for me, yes, it’s a no-brainer that it’s going to get done. But it doesn’t matter what I believe. I need my players to believe.”

Breaking down next dominoes to fall on college basketball hot seat, potential timeline

The college basketball season has only seen a couple of head coaching changes to this point, most recently at Ohio State where the Buckeyes moved on from Chris Holtmann. However, that isn’t to say that there aren’t coaches on the hot seat who could be moved on from.

While making an appearance on Andy Staples On3, James Fletcher shared a timeline for the next dominoes to fall in college basketball and shared a few names to look out for. He also explained that it’s important to remember basketball and football operate differently. 

“It’s a little bit different than what we see in college football,” James Fletcher said. “We don’t see as many of these early goes where they kind of dump a guy in February to get the search going because you really can kind of start putting feelers out at the same point, regardless of what you’re doing. Usually, if you’re looking at the top pool of candidates, you have to wait for them to exit the NCAA Tournament anyways. So, you’re not really putting yourself at much of a disadvantage if you wait until you bow out of the conference tournament or the end of the regular season, whatever it might be. 

“So, I don’t think we’re gonna see some big run of February firings here. That just hasn’t been the trend across college basketball recently.”