Louisville AD Josh Heird Standing By HC Kenny Payne Amid Rough Start

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It's no secret that the Louisville men's basketball program is currently in the midst of their worst season of the modern era. But UofL athletic director Josh Heird, at least for now, is standing by their head coach.

Speaking to the media Friday morning following a University of Louisville Athletics Association Board of Directors meeting, Heird was asked about his confidence regarding first-year head coach Kenny Payne. Heird said that Payne has yet to do anything that indicates he should be let go.

"As far as supporting Kenny, I mean, that's, extremely important to me," Heird said via the Courier-Journal's Alexis Cubit. "Until he does something that says, 'Hey, I don't think he should be our basketball coach,' I'm going to support him 110 percent. But I can promise you he hasn't done one thing that has shown me that he shouldn't be our basketball coach. Now, does that mean that any of us are satisfied with two wins? Absolutely not. Like I said, it is extremely frustrating."

Heird hired Payne, a former Cardinal under Denny Crum and longtime assistant coach at Kentucky, to be the next head coach at Louisville last March after UofL and former head coach Chris Mack mutually separated last January. This is Payne's first heading coaching gig at any level of basketball.

Just past the halfway point of his first season at the helm, very little has gone right. The Cardinals began the season 0-9 for their worst start since the 1940-41 season, and are currently 2-15 overall and 0-6 in ACC conference play.

While there has been some improvement in recent weeks, such as an increase in overall effort and the emergence of Mike James, Louisville is still on pace to set the school record for most losses in a single season, which stands at 20. Heird is standing by Payne, concentrating on long term expectations once Payne is able to establish his culture, but did admit he was frustrated with the current product on the court.

"I can promise you, I don't go home satisfied with 'we're getting better,' and Kenny even more so than me," Heird said." We don't want to go home and say 'we're getting better, we're making progress.' So we understand the expectations in this program, and the expectation is to win a lot of basketball games and compete at an extremely high level. For me, it's the same as it is for any program here in the athletic department. That is about progress. That is about where we are now to where we want to go.

However, Heird believes this is more of a byproduct of what Payne inherited vs. an indication of his actual coaching ability. He brought back just six returners from a team that finished 13-19 during the 2021-22 season - the worst Louisville team in over two decades - and the program's ongoing NCAA/IARP case was not formally resolved until this past October. The Cardinals were, surprisingly, able to avoid major penalties, including a postseason ban.

"I don't want to sit here and be a broken record and say the IARP was a cloud, but it was," Heird said. "That's a fact. A lot of people look at the transfer portal and say we should have gotten some high-level recruits. Well, most of your kids in the portal, your high-level kids, they want to compete for a championship. They want to go to the NCAA Tournament. Everybody here thought, best case scenario was we got a one-year postseason ban. So, imagine being Kenny, imagine being in his shoes and saying, 'Hey, really high transfer, you have one year of eligibility left. Come play for me.' First question: will I get to play in the NCAA Tournament? Everybody's thinking that there's going to be a postseason ban here and right away, Louisville gets scratched off the list of where a kid wants to transfer. All of that's behind us."

The Cardinals might not be in the best situation right now, but with the IARP 'cloud' now firmly behind them, Heird believes that Payne will eventually guide Louisville to greener pastures and live up to what is normally expected from the program.

"Do I think we're headed in the right direction? That's not just wins and losses. That's everything around the program, you know, are we setting ourselves up to be successful? Yes," Heird said. "Now, but obviously, more so in the future and creating a foundation that's going to last more than you catch lightning in a bottle and you had a good year. How do we create a program that's going to be sustainable and be really good year after year, because that's the expectation around here. That's what we're gonna shoot for. I know, that's what I'm shooting for."

Louisville will be back in action this weekend to host North Carolina. Tip-off against the Tar Heels is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 14 at 2:00 p.m. EST.

(Photo of Josh Heird: Matthew McGavic - Louisville Report)

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