What Kenny Payne, Louisville Players Said After 82-76 Loss vs. Syracuse

Read what the head coach of the Cardinals, forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and forward Kaleb Glenn said after their loss to the Orange.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville men's basketball program was nearly able to pull off a comeback in their rematch with Syracuse, but the rally wound up falling just short, with the Cardinals suffering an 82-76 loss to extend their losing streak to five-in-a-row.

Here's what head coach Kenny Payne, forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and forward Kaleb Glenn had to say following the loss:

Head Coach Kenny Payne

(Opening Statement)

“First of all, coming into this game we talked about the urgency we needed to go out and finish the season strong and head into the ACC Tournament. We talked about what Syracuse had to lose and that we would get their best effort because they had won five of their last six games or so. So you are going to have to beat a really good team that is hot right now. I am very disappointed that I and we as a staff could not get these guys to come out with the energy, effort, and fight you need to have to get a win. For me, personally, I look at this and say ‘alright, am I giving the message the wrong way? Am I asking you to sacrifice something you are not able to do. Am I saying something that is not translating so that you understand what winning is.’ Winning is very, very hard. The reality of it is that if you don’t go out and earn respect, no one is going to give you respect. I need this group of young men to go out and fight to earn their respect. We talk about it every day. I talk about it every day. I don’t want to have a stretch where we make a run at the end of the game and cut it to five and then they go on 17-5 run or whatever it was. That is not what we talked about. That is not what we are about. That is not what we are trying to teach. Is not one guy, it is a multitude of guys. This is really hard, and I am going to say it again, I love every one of these players that is on this team. There is a fight that is required that you must have to win at this level, in this conference against these teams. At times, we don’t show that we have it. At times. our body language is bad. At times, we look disconnected and that is a problem for me.”

(Coming off four losses in a row, is the product on the floor up to UofL standards)

“The University of Louisville deserves to win. The University of Louisville deserves to have a product on the court that if you aren’t winning, you are fighting. The fans see it every single second you are on the floor. The University of Louisville needs to see a team with chemistry that love each other and that is fighting for each other. I know what I see, I know what I am coaching and I know what I am trying to get them to do. At times I see it and at times, to be honest, I don’t see it. It is a problem for me. I don’t have a lot of guys that I can go to when some go south on us that I can go to and fix it.”

(During 16-3 run, the team struggled against the zone)

“I know these kids aren’t perfect and I am not expecting them to be perfect. We work against a zone in every single day. We do a drill against the zone every single day. Then we get in the game and get passive and hold the ball versus the zone. We take a dribble before we pass it. The ball is supposed to zip, we get the ball to the corners, we get the ball to the middle, everything opens up. We did not do that today. I wish I had a 1000 percent answer to why, except that guys are processing the game and not seeing it before they get the ball hits their hands. We should not be struggling against a zone with as much time as we spend working on it.”

(About being frustrated with Brandon Huntley-Hatfield before he finished with a double-double)

“There is a player on their team that is on the floor, playing a lot of minutes. We call that guy defending him a spy guy. So, if you are defending a guy and you are the spy guy, then you are in the lane helping everyone else. He is not a part of their offensive schemes. You should be under the lane helping everyone else. Why is it then that a guy drives and that guy is in the corner, that you are guarding him in the corner? That is why I was upset. He was not the only one. There were three or four other guys doing the same thing and that is a problem for me. If we want to win, attention to detail, know your personnel and do what you are told.”

(About the reason that the players are having trouble grasping the concepts)

“I don’t fully know. Their words say one thing and their body language says another. Their words say ‘I am confident, I can do this’, their body language says ‘this is hard and these are really good players.’ That is what I see. Instead of simply saying what you truly are experiencing, you let your ego say, I should have done that, I could have done that, I should have done that, I thought I had that. That is not the answer. The answer is that in order to do what you were told to do, in order to play at this level, you have to love what you are doing. If you like it, you are in the wrong profession. If you think it is okay, then you are in the wrong profession. And not just like it and love it only when things are good. You have to love it when things are bad. This is what separates good from great. The process of becoming a great player, of becoming a great team, when things aren’t good, that is the only way we can judge who we are as character – when things are bad. That is how we judge. I need players and I want players who fight when things are tough and they are loving their teammates and doing it together. And they are doing what they are supposed to do on the court. They are overcoming their barriers. Mike James went through a spell in the first half where he was down. He didn’t believe. The whole time he was going through that I was saying, ‘Mike, I believe. I am not letting you off the hook. You are shooting those technicals. He relaxed. He fought through it. He got better and finished the game playing confidently. That is what this game is. If they don’t understand that, you are not going to waltz your way through this world, this life and things be easy and be on your terms. You have to go through hard times in order to achieve greatness. It is really that simple.”

(About Syracuse going straight down the lane for a layup coming out of a timeout to dunk and where the breakdown was)

“The breakdown was Brandon Huntley-Hatfield was in front of the point guard. Ty-Laur Johnson should be in back of the point guard – front and back – we sandwich him. For some reason, Ty-Laur twisted his body and was on the side of the point guard. If he was directly behind the point guard, and the ball goes there and he runs – he runs through his chest. If he is on the side, he runs down the court. It is really that simple. Attention to detail and little things mean a lot. I am not blaming Ty-Laur, but the lack of attention to detail takes a nothing play to end up in a dunk.

Forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Forward Kaleb Glenn

(On if you feel like you all aren’t fighting hard enough)

Huntley-Hatfield: “I feel like we are out there giving good effort, but it has to be better, obviously. I just think it's not more so our effort, I think it’s communicating with each other, being in the right spot, attention to detail, scouting what we want to take away and what we want to disrupt. I feel like we’re out there trying, it’s just about communicating and being more locked in and attentive to the details of the game.”

(On why message isn’t transferring from practice to games)

Glenn: “We're not applying it for like 40 minutes straight, like the whole game. I mean, we'll do it for spurts of the game, but I think we just need to work on doing it the whole game instead of just when we’re down.”

(On if you felt like Mike James was down in the first half and how he bounced back in the second half)

Huntley-Hatfield: “I don’t think he was down. I think he was a little frustrated. Obviously, he works hard. We're at the gym in the morning every day together and I see him every day with me, or he's there before me. I think it was more so frustrated, not getting foul calls, his shot not going in, or he wasn't taking what the defense was giving him, that's what was frustrating him. But then we just told him he was good and just take what the defense gives you no matter what and we'll live with it, and he did that in the second half and it was better.”

(On why the momentum has shifted back the other way after two-game home win streak)

Huntley-Hatfield: “That’s a really good question. I think each person in our program, the guys who are playing, have to do some soul searching. It’s not on our staff, it’s on us.”

(On how Kenny Payne has changed as a coach in his two years here)

Huntley-Hatfield: “I think he understands more what he wants in practice and in the games and from our team. Last year, he was more so doing it on the fly and not really getting to know the guys. He’s catered to who his players are. Just being himself really, and the guys love that. And talking to the guys as people, as humans, and being more than a coach. That’s where he really stands out for us.

(Photo of Kenny Payne: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)

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