The Floyd Street Tribune: Kenny Payne is playing the hits at Louisville

Inside: How Kenny Payne is striking the right notes in his first months on the job. Plus, scheduling tidbits, recruiting thoughts, a more somber note on Texas and more.

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One small thought: KP’s playing the hits

Louisville Men's Basketball @LouisvilleMBB

𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲 Milt Wagner! 📝: uofl.me/3wILceF #GoCards

When I lived in West Palm Beach a decade ago, I attended a John Mayer concert with a big group of friends. (Don’t even try to roast me — I am a dad now. I am immune to criticism of my music choices.) The show was solid — dude is a really good guitarist — but we got in the car wondering why he didn’t play any of the songs he is famous for. Kudos to him for still putting on a good show, but the lack of hits was so glaring that a local radio station cleared its upcoming playlist and just put on John Mayer’s biggest songs for people leaving the jam-packed parking lot.

Kenny Payne? He is not doing that. He is not leaving Louisville fans wondering why they listened to a meandering 10-minute guitar solo when rollicking pop hit “No Such Thing” was right there. Louisville fans are not in the parking garage somewhere listening to clips of the 1986 national title game. (OK, maybe you are.) Kenny Payne is playing the hits, one right after another, on a barnstorming tour of Cards nostalgia.

(1) Denny Crum meets him at Bowman Field. (2) Payne asks former Louisville players to stand up at his introductory press conference. (3) He hires Derek Smith’s son, Nolan Smith, as his first assistant coach. (4) He references Crawford Gym on his campus tour. (5) He hires Milt Wagner to his staff.

All five of those are Top 40 hits for Louisville fans. Like, inject-them-into-the-veins hits. Encore-please hits. The only way he’d get any bigger is by creating a cologne with the scent of mid-1980s Freedom Hall while swinging from the rafters in the Flying Cardinal Bird mascot costume. But here’s the thing: The nods to tradition are authentic. These aren’t forced attempts at reconnecting Louisville men’s basketball with its past. These are real threads Payne is pulling on while strengthening the bond between what is new and what is tradition and history at Louisville. It’s a fascinating effort that doesn’t come across at all as trying too hard. I believe it was George Washington who once said, “The vibes are immaculate,” and at Louisville, right now, they are.

Louisville is a historic basketball program with rich tradition and a coach who connects to that history while also currently making modern Louisville cool again because of how he connects to people now. He is — and this is meta as hell — working on making new Cards history while connecting to old Cards history.

That’s why this week’s news that Wagner is joining the university staff at Louisville was received the way it was. It is another bridge to the many successful yesteryears of Cardinals basketball while also nodding to the future. DJ Wagner sure seems like he’ll play for Louisville. That’s the belief among the industry contacts I trust the most. And with Milt Wagner’s role appearing to not be an issue in terms of violating any NCAA rules, you have to think DJ’s grandpa getting a job at U of L makes as big a statement as any that U of L is in a great spot with the top prospect in the 2023 class. Right?

Imagine that.

You can never go wrong with playing the hits.

Schedule notes

Friend of the newsletter/my personal mortal enemy Mike Rutherford said something to the effect of “you’re an idiot” when I suggested that perhaps the Louisville-Kentucky rivalry series would continue on its location rotation as if the 2021 game happened at UK despite it actually being canceled. I wondered if Louisville would just host in 2022 and Kentucky in 2023 as contractually obligated. Alas, Mike was correct. Sounds like Louisville-Kentucky is set for Dec. 31 at Rupp Arena, per Jon Rothstein.

(1) I think playing in Lexington is fair after last season’s cancelation. (2) Playing this game on Dec. 31 in the age of the College Football Playoff is extremely stupid, though at least it’s very likely to be an early afternoon game because (a) the rivalry games at Rupp are typically in the early afternoon because that’s when CBS plays college hoops and (b) CBS has no interest in competing with college football’s biggest games. That means UK-U of L should probably tip no later than 1. But all of this is silly: Just play the game another day.

Speaking of rivalry games, I absolutely, positively love the prospect of Louisville-Indiana and Louisville-Memphis possibly coming back. IU coach Mike Woodson mentioned the potential return of the series in 2023, while Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said he inquired about a game with Kenny Payne. I am a proponent of fun, challenging schedules, putting me at direct odds with Jim Boeheim, and I really do love the idea of getting a bunch of Louisville’s rivals in the mix for future schedules. Someone call Cincinnati.

U of L might(?) be playing Oklahoma State in the Armed Forces Classic a few years after the teams were supposed to play in another exempt tournament. I say might there because the guy who reported the matchup, bracket projector and hoops obsessive Rocco Miller, has since deleted that tweet. Not sure what’s up there, but that game would be cool if it happened.

Toss Memphis in there and that is a very difficult nonconference slate.

Recruiting

Still waiting on some additions as Louisville’s players prepare for summer workouts. El Ellis told me the plan is for the players to arrive in the next few days ahead of the 10-week summer term. Danny Manning said the group will mostly work on cohesion, fitness and fundamentals as the staff works through how it wants the Cards to play.

Still betting on Malachi Smith and Emoni Bates as Louisville’s two eventual transfer portal additions.

A short note from my hurting heart

I know you come to The Floyd Street Tribune for hoops analysis and nuggets about your favorite (or most hated?) team. I appreciate that. I appreciate your attention. I appreciate your interest. But I have to admit how hollow I have felt the past 36 hours since news broke of the elementary school shooting in Texas.

My wife and I have a beautiful, happy 4-month old son. We are obsessed with him — with his smile, his giggles, his baby babbles, his yawns, his sneezes. Obsessed with every single thing about him, every step of his development. And while I have worked on these newsletters, put out new podcasts, done play-by-play and started a full-time job with Louisville City and Racing Louisville, there isn’t a minute that goes by without me thinking about our son.

The parents of those kids in Texas have had those emotions for somewhere between eight and 10 years. If they are even remotely like me, they adored their children. And in their most vulnerable years, at the very height of their innocence and youthful exuberance, at the age when they start getting too damn smart for their own good — they were disgustingly, shockingly taken away from their parents and from our world. That is just so suffocatingly sad.

Four years ago, on a freezing night in December, I interviewed the parents of Bailey Holt, one of the two students who were killed in the Marshall County High shooting. To be in that room with them, to listen to her father, Jasen, talk about sending her Facebook page a message every single day, to listen to him talk about visiting her grave every day — that was heart-shattering, a grief you can somehow feel all the way down in your bone marrow.

I sat with that memory Tuesday night and again Wednesday night. I know so many of you have, too. And it just breaks me. Over and over again. If it’s the only thing you do today, pour your love into your family. Call your parents, your grandparents, your siblings — whoever is in your life — and tell them you love them and know that they love you.

Floyd Street’s Finest podcast

As noted last week, El Ellis and Danny Manning are the latest guests on Floyd Street’s Finest, along with Sean Vinsel of HoopsInsight. We’ll be back next week with more good stuff. You can listen to the latest pods on Spotify and Apple and wherever else you get your podcasts.

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