- Payne was an assistant coach at Kentucky for 10 seasons.
- A former Cardinal, Payne was on the 1986 NCAA Championship team.
- Payne will be the first permanent Black head basketball coach at Louisville in program history.
INDIANAPOLIS— louisville’s search for a new men’s basketball coach is all but over, and the Cardinals are turning to a familiar face.
Kenny Payne — a former Louisville player and Kentucky assistant coach — is expected to be named the Cardinals’ coach on Friday. The hire is pending U of L Athletics Association Board of Directors Approval. The board will meet Friday at 9 am, and Louisville has called a 10 am news conference.
Payne’s hire will end a coaching search that on Wednesday hit 50 days, beginning when Louisville parted ways with coach Chris Mack.
The 55-year-old Payne will be the first Black permanent head coach in Louisville’s basketball history.
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Though he’s currently an assistant with the New York Knicks, most of Payne’s coaching experience has come in the college game, most notably as an assistant for 10 seasons on John Calipari’s staff at Kentucky. Payne was Calipari’s associate head coach from 2014-20. Payne has not been a head coach.
“They could not hire anybody that will do a better job than Kenny Payne,” Calipari said Wednesday prior to Kentucky’s open practice at the NCAA Tournament. “Great coach, great human being, great husband, great father, Louisville graduate. I may say he should have been hired before there, but you know what? They get him, they’ve got the best of the best”
Louisville no doubt hopes to capitalize on Payne’s experience, his reputation as a recruiter and his knack for developing talent.
Kentucky ranked first or second in the 247Sports recruiting class rankings every season he was an assistant with the Wildcats. And Payne is credited with playing a strong role in the development of future NBA players at UK, including Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns and Bam Adebayo.
“KP is one of the best development coaches in the world,” Towns told The Athletic in 2019. “KP is the horse beneath the jockey driving Kentucky basketball.”
While Payne never was the Wildcats’ head coach, he took over at least twice after Calipari was ejected for receiving two technicals. Payne took over under those circumstances for Kentucky wins at South Carolina in 2016 and at Arkansas in 2020.
Payne will be the second Knicks assistant in as many years to leave for a head coaching job at his alma mater. Indiana coach Mike Woodson — also a former Knicks head coach — was on an assistant with Payne on Tom Thibodeau’s New York staff in 2020-21.
The Hoosiers won Tuesday in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four.
Thibodeau told reporters in January that Payne would be “a great fit” at Louisville.
“I think (Payne) has great comfort in the college game because of the great success that they had at Kentucky,” Thibodeau said. “I think for him, the Louisville job is obviously appealing because it’s his alma mater.”
Thibodeau isn’t the only coach who expressed confidence in Payne.
Rick Pitino, who coached at Kentucky and Louisville, told ZagsBlog.com in January that he thought Payne could “unite” Lousville.
“I’m not endorsing him because that would probably be the killer for him,” Pitino told ZagsBlog. “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.”
Payne’s hire is no outlier in college basketball circles.
In this NCAA Tournament, Michigan’s Juwan Howard, Memphis’ Penny Hardaway and North Carolina’s Hubert Davis are coaching their alma maters without previous head coaching experience.
Duke has named assistant coach and former Blue Devils player Jon Scheyer as successor to Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is retiring at the end of this season. Scheyer has never been a head coach.
Davis and Scheyer were named to replace longtime coaches for whom they worked as assistants. Howard and Hardaway stepped into coaching roles from outside their alma maters.
“When you look at a guy like myself and Penny and others, these are dream jobs for us because we remember being that student and going to class and getting to experience that college atmosphere,” Howard said Thursday prior to the Wolverines’ open practice. “And then you come back, and your experience, now you are able to teach and give back to other young men. I think it’s just — it’s a special icing on the cake. I look at it as I’m blessed. It’s fun that I get an opportunity to do something I love doing.”
Famous alumni have had mixed recent results in taking over programs.
While Howard, Hardaway and Davis have their teams in the NCAA Tournament, Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing — a Hall of Famer and former Hoyas All-American — is 68-84 in five seasons at his alma mater and went 6-25 this season. Former St. John’s coach Chris Mullin went 59-73 coaching the Red Storm from 2015-19.
Payne played at Louisville from 1985-89 and was a freshman on the Cardinals’ 1986 NCAA championship team coached by Denny Crum. Payne finished his Cardinals career with 1,083 points and 476 rebounds.
Louisville finished this season 13-19 and 6-14 in the ACC. The Cardinals were 6-8 under Mack and 7-11 under Mike Pegues, who served as acting head coach while Mack was suspended for the first six games of the season and took over after Mack and U of L reached a separation agreement in January. The Cardinals missed the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism