NO PANIC | Louisville AD Josh Heird voices confidence in direction of men's basketball
- Eric Crawford
- Jan 13, 2023 Updated 56 min ago
- Comments
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The University of Louisville men's basketball team is suffering through a bad season of historic proportions. Statistics aren't necessary to demonstrate that fact, though a ranking of No. 339, the lowest in Power 5, in the NCAA's latest NET ratings says everything you need to know.
A new metric came in a financial update to the U of L athletics association board of directors on Friday morning. The program's revenue is $2 million lower than this time a year ago, owing to lagging ticket sales, seat donations and suite revenue (some of that dating back to last season's poor finish).
The Cardinals are 2-15, have yet to win an ACC game and, despite improved play, just lost to league leader Clemson by 12 heading into a weekend matchup with North Carolina.
Louisville athletics director Josh Heird says he's frustrated, like everyone else, with the struggles. He's a presence in Louisville practices and is around the team and coaches in the locker room and elsewhere.
He also said that first-year coach Kenny Payne and his staff deserve time to turn around the difficult situation they walked into.
"I can promise you, I don't go home satisfied with, 'We're getting better.' And Kenny even more so than me. 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," Heird said Friday. "... As far as supporting Kenny, I mean, that's, it's extremely important to me. And until he does something that says, hey, I don't think he should be our basketball coach, I'm going to support him 110%. 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. It's extremely frustrating. I know, it's frustrating to Kenny, it's frustrating to staff, and it's frustrating to the student athletes."
Heird, however, said it's important to note the situation the staff inherited, and the difficulty of mining the transfer portal during an offseason in which the notion of a postseason ban was being thrown around freely.
"If you take a step back, and this is really hard to do — it's really hard for fans to do, it's really hard for me to do, it's really hard for Kenny to do — and say, 'Hey, what were we dealing with hen we made that coaching transition?' Look at who was on this team look and the track record they had previously and look who is not on that team now. ... And I don't want to sit here and be a broken record and say, 'Oh, you know, the IARP was a cloud,' But it was. 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 high-level kids in the portal want to compete for a championship. They want to go to the NCAA Tournament. And everybody here, everybody here thought, best-case scenario, was we got a one-year postseason ban. So, imagine being in Kenny's shoes and saying to a high-level transfer, 'You have one year of eligibility left, come play for me.' First question. Do I get to play in the NCAA Tournament? Everybody's thinking, 'No,' that there's going to be a postseason ban here. And right away, Louisville gets scratched off the list. Now all of that's behind us. And so now we're focused on the future focused on getting everything around this program headed in the right direction without anything holding us back. We've got that opportunity we have to take advantage of now. That's not lost on me, the expectations around this program.""
Still, it's enough of a concern that Heird got the question of what board members should say when they hear from fans or people in the community unhappy with the men's basketball situation.
Heird said neither he nor Payne nor anyone on the staff thought the team would be in this position. He also said that they all knew that this season was going to be "extremely difficult" based on the personnel and circumstances.
"Having just 2 wins, has that impacted how I feel about anything or anybody on that staff?" Heird said. "It has not. I would tell you I spend two or three days a week where I poke my head down there. I watch the practice. I see what's going on in the locker room. And I actually feel like we're headed in the right direction more so just because of what is transpiring there.
"Do I want to have more than 2 wins? Yes," Heird went on. "Kenny wants to have more than 2 wins, every guy on that team wants more. But I don't think it's headed in the wrong direction. And we're going to continue to support Kenny and continue to support every student athlete on that team and every staff member who is part of that program, and we're going to get to where this program strives to be. ... If you get into that Twitter echo chamber, you know it's a slippery slope. I think you have to stay focused on what you're seeing, evaluating what you're seeing. And I would tell you, by and large, at least the conversations I have, nobody is hitting the panic button."
NO PANIC | Louisville AD Josh Heird voices confidence in direction of men's basketball
Louisville athletics director Josh Heird says he's frustrated, like everyone else, with the struggles.
