Rick Pitino believes Louisville should hire Kenny Payne as head coach

The University of Louisville is in search of a new head basketball coach, replacing Chris Mack after four seasons with the team. Who could fill the vacancy? Rick Pitino has his choice.

Pitino, who coached at Louisville from 2001-2017, believes former Kentucky associate head coach Kenny Payne is the man for the job.

“I’m hoping inside that they hire Kenny Payne,” Pitino said, via Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.

Payne was an assistant under John Calipari at Kentucky from 2010-14 before being named associate head coach from 2014-20. The New York Knicks then hired Payne as an assistant coach under Tom Thibodeau in August 2020.

Prior to his time as a coach, though, Payne played at Louisville from 1985-89, helping lead the Cardinals to a national title in 1986. He was ultimately selected No. 19 overall in the 1989 NBA Draft.

Considering his history with the Louisville program and his coaching success at Kentucky and in the NBA with the Knicks, Pitino believes Payne is exactly what the Cardinals are looking for.

“I think Kenny Payne can unite Louisville again,” Pitino said. “I’m not endorsing him because that would probably be the killer for him. But I’m hoping Kenny Payne gets it because he can unite all factions of Louisville and that would be great.

“I don’t like to see any coach get fired, but I’m hoping for Kenny. He’s a great guy, a great recruiter, he’s a terrific coach. And if he wants it, I hope he gets it.”

Pitino has been the head coach at Iona since 2020, leading the Gaels to the NCAA Tournament in year one and sitting at 18-3 overall and 10-0 in conference play in year two. He recently picked up the 800th victory of his historic coaching career, one that has also seen stops at Hawaii, Boston University, Providence, Kentucky and Louisville.

He was fired at Louisville in 2017 after a number of in-house scandals, with 123 total wins being vacated by the NCAA in its official record books. He’s won 800 college games on the floor, but the NCAA recognizes only 677.

“I left Louisville — I got fired from Louisville — because they changed all the Board of Trustees, they changed the president, and they changed everything where everybody was loyal to us,” Pitino said Sunday, via Hayes Gardner of the Courier-Journal. “I’ve said it many times, what we went on, I deserved to be fired, but the best AD in the country was let go — in the country, built that whole campus. And that’s what can happen.”

“I have no animosity toward Louisville because all the people that got Tom Jurich left,” Pitino added, via Billy Witz of The New York Times.

Pitino is back to winning games, just not at a high-profile program like Kentucky or Louisville. At this stage in his career, though, he’s just happy to coach at a school that allows him to focus on the Xs and Os.

“It’s a small school that you appreciate all the little things,” Pitino said. “It doesn’t have the big things, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles that I had at Louisville and Kentucky, but none of that bothers me. … You just worry about playing ball and getting better. I’m happy I’m here, it’s one of the best jobs I’ve had.”

He’s so happy, in fact, that he’s now reportedly in negotiations with Iona to sign a lifetime contract. Adam Zagoria broke the news early Thursday morning.

“I told the team that I’m glad that I got 800 here, but I said I want to get another 200 here,” he said Sunday. “And God willing I don’t roll a seven anytime soon, maybe it will happen.

“… This is a great job, we can make this into something really, really special. … Great place, I’m really happy, I hope I can get 1,000 here. God willing, I hope I can live long enough to see that.”

He’s clearly happy where he is now at Iona — he’ll soon have a lifetime deal to prove it — but he also wishes the best for Louisville as it looks for its next head coach.

And if it were up to him, Kenny Payne would get that first phone call.