Kenny Payne shares how he is handling negativity around Louisville

After a 4-28 record last year and a 4-6 start to this season, there isn’t much positivity going around at Louisville at moment. Still, Kenny Payne is doing all he can to get the Cardinals to block out the outside and focus on their goals as a team.

Payne spoke about the loud criticism of him, his team, and the state of the program after their latest 75-63 loss to Arkansas State on Wednesday. He just wants to continue to keep his players in the right mindset, even with plenty of negativity, whether objective or subjective, raining down on them.

“For me, I try to constantly talk to them about what’s important,” said Payne. “I use it as teaching moments.”

“I think that sometimes fans, critics? They look at something and they see it just in wins and losses. And not really fully understanding that there’s young people that read, hear everything that people say,” Payne said. “That hurts them because they trusted to come here, they trusted.”

Still, for all of the pessimism, Payne is okay with it in one sense. At some point or another, each of their was going to hear or deal with some form of backlash. That’s just a step in each of their paths toward becoming the players that they eventually want to be.

“This is a part of the journey – the journey to be a great player,” said Payne. “The journey to conquer yourself is to be able to handle clutter, to handle chaos, to handle critics. To handle and then still be true to who you say you are and what you want in your goals and aspirations. I think that they are learning that.”

Again, it’s hard to be all smiles after having won just eight games over the past 400 days. It’s even more frustrating considering what many thought Payne would be as a head coach, especially with him taking over at his alma mater as a former champion.

Even so, Payne is not waving the white flag on anything or anyone yet. He still has belief in his team’s desires and now just wants to see them prove and show it.

Once they do, they’ll start to quiet the noise and receive the credit that he thinks that they’ll eventually deserve.

“I think that they want to win, I think that they work hard. But something has to happen within them to where they’re able to show it,” Payne said.

“I’m constantly talking about we have to earn respect, that it’s not going to be given to us. That’s respect from the littlest things to the referees, the opposing team, to our fans – everybody,” said Payne. “I want us to earn respect.”