Kenny Payne says Louisville has 'fighting chance' vs. Kentucky: "I want to win the game by one"

Kenny Payne has seen a lot of good basketball in his time as a coach. Maybe not a ton of it at Louisville, but spending time at Oregon, Kentucky and with the New York Knicks, he knows talent when he sees it.

And he believes this group of Wildcats have plenty of it.

“I see six guys (scoring) in double figures, high percentage of threes, get to the line. They’re very, very good basketball players. They’re complete,” Payne said Wednesday. “We have to get back in transition, have to play very good one-on-one defense and help each other. And we have to rebound the basketball. They’re good. There is a reason they are top-10 in the country.

“But if we do what we’re supposed to do, we’ve got a fighting chance.”

Wait, what? The Cardinals, who sit at 5-6 on the year with losses to Chattanooga, DePaul and Arkansas State, have a shot? What makes Payne, who is seemingly coaching for his job at this point, believe that?

“I’ve seen us play the style of basketball that is conducive to winning,” he said. “They’ve got older guys, but also younger guys — a lot of those guys similar to us. They don’t have any experience in this rivalry. Emotions will play a part in it. And if we do things we’re capable of doing — obviously, we’ve got to play really, really good. They’re a top-10 team. But nobody knows until the ball is thrown in the air and we fight. And at the end of the fight, we’ll see where we are and what’s going to happen.”

This game is obviously different for him personally. Internal drama aside, it’s an emotional matchup, taking on John Calipari and a Kentucky program he called home for a decade. He’s coached on the other side of this rivalry while also participating in it as a player. Now he’s going into matchup No. 2 on this side — hoping there’s more to come beyond Thursday.

“It means a lot. I know what it means to this community, I know what it means to this state. I participated in it, I’ve coached against it, coached for it, been on all sides of it. I’m trying to get these guys to understand just how much is invested into this game emotionally,” Payne added. “Help them understand this requires you to be one thousand percent focused on the task at hand. At the end of the day, the stats won’t matter.

“What we shoot, how we play — meaning, up to this point — the only thing that matters is we go out there and fight. At the end of the day, if you fight 40 minutes harder than they fight, you’ve got a chance to win this game.”

He knows the challenge of facing a “very, very good team,” adding Kentucky “could easily be a top-five team.” The Wildcats are improving, sharing the basketball, making shots and improving on the glass and defense. And as much as the focus is being put on the coaching matchup, Payne says those headlines don’t matter once the ball is tipped.

“They’re making it Kenny Payne vs. Coach Cal. This is their players vs. our players, and we’re fighting to earn respect,” he said. “They are being respected. They’ve earned that. We’ve got to go out and earn our respect, as well.”

He doesn’t enjoy coaching against Coach Cal, and he knows Calipari probably doesn’t like coaching against him, either. But this is the situation and they’ve both got to make the most of it.

For him, all he needs is a win. It doesn’t matter how it looks, Payne just wants Louisville to have a single point more than Kentucky when the clock hits all zeroes.

“We have so many years together,” he said. “But the end of the day, I know he wants to beat me down and I want to win the game by one. Then I’m happy.”

A lot is riding on this game for Payne — clearly. It could be make-or-break for his entire head coaching career. More than anything, though, he just wants his players to make the statement he knows they can make.

“I know on the outside looking in, it looks like we don’t have a chance. Well, we’ve got a chance,” Payne said. “We’re going to go out and fight to get that and prove people wrong. Let’s see what happens. If we believe, it doesn’t matter what anybody else does.”