Payne on Louisville's Loss to Lenoir-Rhyne: 'We Needed This Whooping'

The Cardinals' loss to the Bears snapped a 39-game wining streak in exhibition play.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - While the Kenny Payne era of the Louisville men's basketball program doesn't officially get underway until next week, it's already off to a little bit of an inauspicious start.

Taking on Division II foe Lenoir-Rhyne in their first of two exhibition games ahead of the start of the regular season, the Cardinals looked like far from a polished product, dropping the matchup to the Bears 57-47. The loss marked Louisville's first loss in exhibition play in nearly 22 years, snapping a 39-game winning streak in such games.

Of course, as a competitor, Payne wants to win every game that he takes part in. But in order to help lay the foundation for the culture he wants to establish at Louisville, he believes this loss, in a way, was necessary collateral.

"We needed this whooping," Payne said after the game. "We needed this loss because there is something that happened to this program before I got here that hasn’t been healed yet. I am trying to get them to get out of it – to fight through it and get better. Not as a team but as individuals first. Then we can talk about being a good team."

Payne is, of course, referring to Louisville's abysmal 2021-22 campaign. Between former head coach Chris Mack mutually parting ways with the Cardinals midway through the season, and the team itself finishing with their first losing record in over two decades, it helped crater Louisville's confidence and championship-caliber culture.

If Sunday's game was any indicator, Louisville has a long row to hoe before they get back to that standard.

Offensively, the Cardinals were sloppy for most of the afternoon. They shot just 29.2 percent from the field and 31.6 percent on three-point attempts, put up an assist-to-turnover ratio of 7-to-16, and produced just 14 points in the paint. Even though their defense held Lenoir-Rhyne to just 35.7 percent from the field, that was more so a product of the Bears simply missing shots, as Louisville struggled all afternoon with defensive rotations.

"I thought position-wise, we were okay at best, just okay. I thought our communication was really bad. There were times where we could have easily switched and kept the ball up front and decided not to switch," Payne said when asked about the defense. He also called it "unbelievable" that the offense had just two possessions for the entire game where they penetrated the lane multiple times, something that he wants to be a staple on that end of the floor.

Despite an offseason full of long-term hope, promise and even a little bit of hype from fans, Payne hopes that the loss to Lenoir-Rhyne will serve as a reminder to both them and his players of how far the program has to go before they can truly get back to competing at the highest level.

"We needed this," he said. "We have to get healed. We have to not be delusional about who we are. We have to know that every player that has a jersey on, whether it's practice, whether it's a workout, whether it's a game, you have to bring your best. You have to fight for your life, not just for you but for everybody else in the room.

"We're not the most talented team in the world, we're not. We just made that evident by losing to a Division II school, what a great lesson. I wish it didn't happen but I sort of needed it to happen because, at the end of the day, I'm trying to establish a culture and that culture is going to have some adversity in it."

All offseason, he has repeated to the fanbase his message of "I need you." Even though Payne knows that there are going to be some rough patches this season, he still maintains the hope the fans will stick with him and help him guide the program back to their place amongst the nation's elite.

"I hope that they understand that this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. ...  at the end of the day, we're trying to teach them winning basketball, a winning culture," Payne said. "These fans are great fans. Of course, they're going to be some people that jump off. I'm good with that. I'm watching, but I’m good with it. But the true fans, the real Louisville fans, are going to be with us through thick and thin. I knew that coming in and so I'm not worried about that.”

Louisville will be back in action later this week when they host Chaminade for their second and final exhibition game before the start of the regular season. If there's any other positive takeaway from falling to a DII school at home, it's that there is plenty to breakdown in the film room and get better at in practice.

"It kind of shows us where we need to improve," forward Mike James said. "Just bringing more attention to detail, more intensity at practice leading up into the games. I feel like this kind of opened our eyes to what we really need to hammer down on at practice, and I feel like when we come back to practice on Tuesday, we’ll show way better intensity and focus.”

Tipoff between the Cardinal and Silverswords is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 4 at 7:00 p.m. EST, and will be streaming on ACC Network Extra.

(Photo of Kenny Payne: Timothy D. Easley - Special to the Courier-Journal/USA TODAY NETWORK)

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