It’s a total rebuild for the University of Louisville basketball program.
After winning just 12 games in two seasons, Louisville fired Kenny Payne as the school’s head coach on March 13. It came the day after Payne coached his last game, a loss to NC State in the ACC Tournament to end the season with an 8-24 record. Payne ended his career with a 12-52 record at his alma mater.
It didn’t take long for the players on the current roster to begin to enter the transfer portal. On March 18, the day the transfer portal opened, three players jumped into the portal, and by the time Ty-Laur Johnson entered the portal on April 2, the entire U of L roster was in the portal.
“Our fan base is absolutely dying for this program to be successful,” U of L athletic director Josh Heird said. “. . . You know, it’s a lot more than coaching basketball. This basketball program is the lifeblood of this city. One of the things I think is more important than anything else is, we’ve got to have somebody who is dying to coach this basketball program.”
Heird found his man on March 28 when he announced former Charleston coach Pat Kelsey as the new U of L coach.
“I was ready when my name was called,” Kelsey said last month about landing the U of L job. “Competitive excellence. I’ve been preparing for that interview my entire life, it’s the ultimate job, the pinnacle of my professional career.”
Kelsey got going right away, landing a pair of transfers from Charleston in the first four days on the job and then on April 3 adding Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year Terrence Edwards from James Madison. He also added Colorado guard J’Vonne Hadley on April 16 and BYU center Aly Khalifa on April 18. He has the program ranked No. 6 in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings after less than a month on the job. But there’s still plenty of work to do.
