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Kenny Payne is a Louisville graduate and former player who helped the Cardinals win the 1986 NCAA Tournament. He’s a kind and well-liked man. So I understand why the school’s administration was hesitant to remove him after one disastrous season.
But they should’ve.
They 100% should’ve.
And that’s an opinion that’s now impossible to sensibly argue against after Louisville lost again Wednesday night — this time at home to Arkansas State.
Final score: Arkansas State 75, Louisville 63.
The 12-point loss to a Sun Belt school that had previously lost to Jackson State, Little Rock, San Diego and Bowling Green dropped Louisville to 4-6 on the season with zero victories over teams ranked in the top 230 at KenPom.com and three losses to teams ranked 175th or worse. That would be embarrassingly bad even if Payne had somehow won a national championship in Year 1 at his alma mater — but he didn’t. Rather, he went 4-28 in Year 1 while providing zero reasons for anybody to think he was anything other than completely in over his head. Now, things feel as hopeless as ever — on the court and off. And if Louisville actually wants to do what’s best for both its program and Payne, the school should pull the plug on this failed experiment before the Cardinals return to the court Sunday.
I write that sincerely.
Things have gotten so bad that I’m choosing to lead Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings with 500 words on a program that should consistently be ranked but hasn’t even sniffed such things since Payne took over. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest this could go down as college basketball’s all-time worst hire when you consider where Louisville has historically operated and where Payne has taken the program so quickly. Not many things in sports are unimaginable, but Louisville ever being this terrible in basketball really was unimaginable until March 18, 2022.
That’s the day Payne was hired.
It’s been all bad ever since.
When you talk to people around Louisville, they’ll tell you the school couldn’t fire Payne after one season because they just love him too much to do that. When you talk to people around Louisville, they’ll tell you the school can’t fire Payne midseason because they just love him too much to do that.
But that’s silly.
At this point, it would actually be crueler for Louisville to continue to allow Payne to go out there and hold press conferences after losses than it would be to just pay him every penny the school owes him and let him walk away before things get worse. Because things will get worse. The sport of basketball is filled with people who are wonderful humans and great assistants but ill-equipped to run a top-10 program. Respectfully, all of the evidence suggests that Kenny Payne is one of those people. And that’s why, if the folks who run Louisville’s athletic department really love him as much as they say they love him, what they’ll do in the coming days is rescue him from this public humiliation so that everybody can start moving on and stop suffering through something that could’ve theoretically worked but just clearly isn’t and won’t.
Top 25 And 1 rankings
In: Texas A&M | Out: Creighton
