Why didn't Kenny Payne, Louisville basketball get more help in the transfer portal?
Brett DawsonLouisville Courier Journal
It’s not like Kenny Payne didn’t try.
When you ask — as many in college basketball circles are these days — why the first-year Louisville coach didn’t remake his roster via the transfer portal, it’s important to note that Payne wanted a different team than he has.
Payne pursued “six, seven” players in the portal after he was hired in March, he said on his postgame radio show Sunday following an 80-53 loss to Miami that dropped his Cardinals to 0-8.
That interview followed a postgame news conference in which Payne was asked about the portal and recent criticism from college basketball analysts for his failure to find more help in it for a Louisville team that finished 13-19 a season ago under coaches Chris Mack and Mike Pegues.
Payne’s answer: The IARP ruling that came in November — the one that gave Louisville a fine and probation but no postseason ban or scholarship reductions — was too late to impact his first portal season.
To drive home his point, Payne said that a guy “who has players” had called him days before, still unaware that Louisville had received a ruling in its NCAA infractions case.
Until that conversation, Payne said, this contact “still thought, like most people, that we’re probably going to get the death penalty.”
Payne reiterated a recurring point that recruiting competitors used Louisville’s uncertainty as part of a pitch to players: Why play for the Cardinals when you might not be eligible for the NCAA Tournament?
“That hurt. For whatever reason, we didn’t get the kids,” Payne said. “The timing of it was bad. The ruling came at a time where it didn’t allow us to really get the kids, even though we targeted some kids, and they’re at other places having success. I can’t be upset with them because nobody knew what the ruling was going to be.”
Louisville is known to have recruited Iowa State guard Tyrese Hunter before he transferred to Texas. The Cards initially were involved with ex-Memphis forward Emoni Bates, though it was unclear if that pursuit continued. He ultimately chose Eastern Michigan.
And outsiders weren’t the only portal players Payne chased.
Ex-Cards exited
He told Paul Rogers and Bob Valvano on his radio show that he “100%” informed Louisville players who ultimately opted to transfer out that they’d be welcomed back if they chose to return.Some of those players are making an impact elsewhere.
Matt Cross, who transferred to Louisville after a season at Miami and now is at Massachusetts, is averaging a career-high 10.2 points for the Minutemen and shooting 41.2% from 3-point range, a career best and 12.8% better than he shot at U of L.
Guard Noah Locke, who played three seasons at Florida before transferring to Louisville, is using the extra year of eligibility granted by the COVID-19 pandemic to finish his career at Providence. He’s scoring 9.9 points per game on 33.3% 3-point shooting, numbers in line with what he gave the Cards last season.
In his first season at SMU, former Cardinal Samuell Williamson is averaging 8.3 points in 30.1 minutes per game, a season comparable to the one he had at Louisville in 2020-21 before his playing time and production dropped off last season.
And at Seton Hall, ex-Cards guard Dre Davis is averaging 11.4 points and 3.8 rebounds. His brother Tae — a freshman and former Louisville commit who opted out and chose to play with his brother for the Pirates — is a rotation player averaging four points and four rebounds in 18.9 minutes per game.
Even with Cross, Locke, Williamson and Dre Davis, Louisville missed postseason play in 2021-22 and lost 15 of its final 18 games.
Those struggles “took a toll on those kids,” Payne said on his radio show.
But given Louisville’s roster shortcomings — and winless start — it’s easy to see why Payne said he would have welcomed back the players who departed.
“When a Dre Davis looks at me and says ‘Coach, I love what you're about, but every day I wake up, I see Louisville and my heart is broken. I have so much pain here,’ I can't hold him here,” Payne said. “He deserves to be free. He deserves to play this great game and feel good about it, regardless of my own personal (feelings). I needed him, I wanted him. It was a hard decision for him. And I'm happy that he's playing well.”
Louisville's next portal cycle
Louisville isn’t playing well.And the Cards aren’t the only high-profile college basketball team that dealt with NCAA uncertainty in recent years. Arizona has maintained a winner with an IARP decision looming. Kansas won last season’s national championship and is awaiting an IARP ruling.
That’s led college basketball analysts to wonder why Payne struggled to patch together a better roster via the portal.
ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, who told The Courier Journal in the offseason that he expected Payne to excel in the portal, tweeted in November that he’s “stunned that with his connections” Payne and U of L “didn’t crush transfer portal.”
On Sunday, ESPN’s Dick Vitale wondered the same on Twitter, asking why Payne and his staff didn’t “get some immediate help from the transfer portal when hired?” With the loss to Miami, Vitale tweeted, “this has become embarrassing.”
Payne can’t undo past portal misses.
But the Cards’ struggles indicate he can’t afford to repeat them either.
Louisville likely needs a home run offseason to make up for last summer’s strikeouts. And Payne is confident a talent upgrade is coming.
He said Sunday that “my phone rings constantly” and that he’s heard from people with player connections who say “we want to help you.”
“I feel good about that,” Payne said. “I feel good about the kids that have come on official visits here. I feel good about where we're going to take this program. Is it going to take some time? Probably, most likely, but we're gonna get there.”
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brett Dawson at mdawson@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @BDawsonWrites.
