Five recruiting misses that helped doom Kenny Payne at Louisville
With the Kenny Payne era at Louisville coming to an abrupt close after just 64 games, Rivals national basketball analyst Rob Cassidy remembers five crucial recruitments that went south on the now-dismissed head coach and helped doom his tenure. Below, Cassidy explores five big misses that helped contribute to Payne’s 12-52 record and quick termination.
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Where he landed: Kentucky
Whether or not you believe the Cardinals were ever a truly serious player for Wagner, Kenny Payne did get the five-star on campus for visits, which is worth something. The fact that his grandfather was hired by the Louisville athletic department in midst of Wagner’s process whipped the fan base into a brief fever pitch but ultimately proved fruitless. Louisville made the two-team list of finalists to land his pledge, but came up well short. That said, it’s easy to imagine a universe where Wagner picked the Cardinals and started a trend of high-profile prospects seriously considering the program in an effort to build something alongside the touted wing.
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Where he landed: Australia
Standing at the center of one of many odd situations that sprouted from the Payne era, Flowers chose Louisville over offers from places like Creighton, Alabama and Kansas before signing with the Cardinals and making it to campus … for a few days. After going through some team workouts, the former four-star prospect decided he would leave the program and ship off to Australia to spend the season playing in the NBL. Would Flowers have been a major difference maker for Payne? Who knows, but a player with his pro upside could certainly have helped a 8-24 team that looked perpetually in need of a player that could assert his will and go get a bucket when called upon. The unique and borderline bizarre nature of Flowers' short stint as a Cardinal served as a microcosm for the Payne era as a while
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Where he landed: Kentucky
Bradshaw was a bit of a latecomer to the Louisville radar last cycle, but the Cardinals were able to shove their way into his recruitment before ultimately losing out to rival Kentucky. There was a bit of unsubstantiated buzz that Bradshaw preferred Kenny Payne’s program to Kentucky because he wanted to step away from playing in the shadow of high school teammate DJ Wagner, but that proved untrue when Bradshaw chose UK over the Cardinals on Oct. 14, 2022. Like Wagner, his two finalists were UK and Louisville.
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Where he landed: Australia by way of Texas
Payne offered Johnson just a month or so after taking the Louisville job and emerged as a serious player for his commitment late in the cycle when Nolan Smith began to spearhead Johnson’s recruitment. Johnson became Louisville’s top 2023 target after DJ Wagner began heavily trending toward Kentucky, but Payne and his staff came up well short after being listed as finalists next to LSU and eventual pick Texas. Of course Johnson never enrolled in Austin, as he elected to play professionally in the NBL instead, but the time and resources the UofL staff poured into chasing the five-star were significant to say the least.
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Where he landed: North Carolina
Just how serious Cadeau was about his interest in Louisville depends on who you ask, as it appeared that he might have been extremely intrigued in the early going. The five-star guard visited campus and praised Payne in the days following his trip, but the interest he showed in those days evaporated quickly. The Cardinals had become an afterthought of sorts by the time Cadeau was ready to announce, but you can imagine a world where the Louisville was a much more serious player had things not gone south for Kenny Payne so quickly. When Cadeau committed to North Carolina in late December of last year, Payne was already well on his way to stumbling to a 4-28 record in his first season, making the future look uncertain to say the least.