Louisville HC Kenny Payne Previews Duke (2/26/24)
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00:00 In the meantime, if you have a question for Kenny, go ahead and use the raise hand tool.
00:14 For those just joining us, if you need access to record, let me know that as well and I
00:18 can get that access for you.
00:22 Good morning, Kenny.
00:23 Good morning.
00:24 Good morning.
00:25 Good to see you.
00:26 Hope you're doing well.
00:27 Yes, sir.
00:28 Again, anyone with a question for Kenny, go ahead and use that raise hand tool.
00:33 Russ Brown is the first one to do so.
00:35 Go ahead, sir.
00:36 Hey, Kenny.
00:37 How are you doing?
00:38 Good, Russ.
00:39 How are you doing?
00:40 All right.
00:41 As you can imagine, the hot topic this morning has been the whole court storming situation.
00:49 I need to ask you about your opinion of the whole issue and your experience with any court
00:57 storming during your players back in the dark ages or the assistant coach, as Kentucky.
01:02 Yeah.
01:03 I mean, you know, first of all, I think it's important that we protect the players.
01:10 You know, I'm just watching ESPN and they're talking about how do we protect this and there's
01:17 no way that we should allow fans on the court.
01:19 And I agree with some of that and most of it.
01:24 But I also think that it may not be a situation where we allow we should allow the opponent,
01:37 the opposite team to get in the locker room so that if the fans want to celebrate with
01:44 their team, they can do that.
01:46 And the other team is safe.
01:48 We have to protect these kids because the incident that happened at Duke the other day,
01:54 you know, unfortunately, I hope none of the players are hurt.
02:00 But it was chaotic, to say the least.
02:04 You know, we played when I was at Kentucky, we played Indiana and they stormed the court
02:10 and it was it was hard getting out of there, getting off the court for the players, for
02:16 the coaches as well.
02:17 And it was it was chaotic in that situation.
02:20 And there's again, we got to protect players and young people from getting into incidents
02:25 and players trying to protect themselves and maybe pushing somebody or a fan hitting somebody
02:33 or you know, you just don't want those situations.
02:39 Go next to Brett Friedlander.
02:40 Hey, Kenny.
02:42 I know the results on the court haven't been what you have liked, but as you build a foundation
02:47 moving forward, what are some of the areas of growth that you've seen that that make
02:52 you the most optimistic?
02:53 Well, I think we've done things that prove that when the program is where it needs to
03:04 be, we can live in that.
03:06 Basically, what I'm saying is when you have five and six guys scoring double figures,
03:13 when you score 80, upper 80s, 90 points in a game, you're playing at a pace that's entertaining
03:24 and you're watching the development of players.
03:28 You know, Brandon, Mike James has gotten better.
03:31 Scott Clark is a good player.
03:32 Trey White has gotten better.
03:35 You see development in some guys.
03:37 It just hadn't been consistent enough.
03:40 So I think when you're talking about rebuilding a program or building a program and building
03:46 a culture, I think we've shown in small samples, and I'm not in any type of way satisfied with
03:55 it, but we have done some things that show what we're capable of doing.
04:03 As a guy who's a competitor and who's been around winning programs all his life, how
04:07 challenging has these last couple of years been?
04:11 Very challenging.
04:12 Again, I use this statement all the time.
04:17 What I know now, all this leadership talk and you hear from a perspective of everything
04:26 is great, you're winning.
04:29 Very rarely are you in situations where you're listening to people that are in leadership
04:35 roles and how do they lead when things are bad, when things aren't where they need to
04:41 be.
04:42 To me, that's knowing what I know now, that's the true form of leadership.
04:46 Am I coming in here berating my players?
04:48 No.
04:49 Am I coaching them with love?
04:50 Yes.
04:51 Am I pushing them to be better every day?
04:54 Yes.
04:55 Am I accepting them giving me less than 100%?
05:00 No.
05:02 That's a challenge.
05:04 That's a challenge when you see their insecurities, you see that it's not just basketball, there's
05:11 other factors involved in how young people perform, how they think, how this generation
05:20 reacts to adversity.
05:23 First challenge is that you're teaching young players to be more open to opening up so that
05:30 they can be coached, so that they can be mentored, so they can learn.
05:36 You know, this old adage of you're never too old to learn is true.
05:41 Some young people believe they already have all the answers.
05:45 So it's a challenge, yes.
05:48 Thank you very much, Kenny.
05:49 Best of luck moving forward, man.
05:51 Thank you.
05:52 We'll go next to Royal Howell.
05:54 Good morning, Coach.
05:55 How you doing this morning?
05:56 Good, good.
05:57 Good morning.
05:58 Coach, as you prepare for Duke this week, what has it meant for you to have, you know,
06:03 from one national champion to another national champion, Nolan Smith on your staff in preparation
06:08 for Duke, what has it meant for you?
06:10 Well, Nolan, it's family.
06:14 And you know, he played at Duke.
06:17 You know, I have a multitude of guys, Danny, Nolan, Milt, all have won national titles
06:25 and have been around winning programs.
06:28 So that's invaluable.
06:30 Facing Duke, I know Nolan has a lot of ties there, a lot of loved ones there, people that
06:39 respect him for what he's done.
06:42 And I know he wants to go there and perform well and sort of like me, want to come out
06:46 of there with a victory.
06:49 And so it's good to have people like Nolan and Milt and Danny and even Josh, Reese Gaines,
06:58 a group of men that have had a bunch of success playing basketball and can teach the lessons
07:06 of life together as we try to do this with young people.
07:11 Thanks, Coach.
07:12 Good luck the rest of the season.
07:14 Thank you.
07:15 We'll go back to Russ Brown.
07:18 Yeah, Danny, to follow up on what I asked a while ago, I asked you about any experiences
07:24 as a player.
07:25 I'm thinking specifically that '86 team that went to the NC State and was ranked in the
07:33 top five and got upset that was your last loss before you won the championship.
07:39 Did they not storm the court?
07:40 And then go ahead.
07:41 Russ, I'm old now, so I can't remember all of these situations.
07:50 I remember the South Carolina game, but it's the flip side.
07:55 I remember me and Purvis trying to get in the stands to get a fan who threw a punch.
08:03 NC State, I don't fully remember that.
08:06 South Carolina was a good one.
08:10 Yeah, go ahead.
08:11 South Carolina was a little bit different situation because it was during the game.
08:18 One other quick thing.
08:20 You think this break has been good for your team, and how did you approach it?
08:25 What did you do?
08:26 First of all, I thought having the time off helps us heal a little bit.
08:33 We got guys that needed to take days off, and Mike James and Scott Clark and those guys
08:40 needed to heal up a little bit.
08:42 It was good for them to get that, but it also gave us an opportunity to just focus on development.
08:49 We had a couple days where we just worked on shooting the ball, worked on passing the
08:55 ball, worked on making reads so that when they're in these situations, they can read
09:02 and react off of each other.
09:05 At the end of the day, the main thing is that we can't go into a game versus Duke and not
09:13 prepare for a battle.
09:15 It's going to be a battle, and the battle is going to be on the defensive end and the
09:19 rebounding end.
09:21 We know how good an offensive team they are.
09:24 We know that they have four or five guys, five guys that score in double figures.
09:29 We know they got a big guy that has one less assist in conference play than their traditional
09:36 starting point guard who's really good.
09:40 We have to be alert and ready to defend and ready to play tough, hard-nosed defense.
09:47 We'll take the last question from Brooks Holton.
09:51 Go ahead, Brooks.
09:52 Yeah, Kenny, Russ, I stole the question there, but just how did you see your players?
09:59 I take the weekend off and just I get back to work.
10:02 I'm after that tough loss to Notre Dame.
10:05 Can you take us through just how they were feeling coming back to work after that?
10:10 Well, we met with most of all the guys, sat down and talked to them about how they feel,
10:16 how they digested this, what could we do different, what can they do different.
10:21 We did a little bit of that.
10:23 We talked about how important it is to finish this season off the right way.
10:30 And Brooks, what we try to do is we try to make this a culture of work and honesty.
10:39 Here's where we are.
10:40 Here's what we're trying to do.
10:41 Here's what we want to win today.
10:44 That's our motto.
10:46 Take care of today.
10:47 Give it all you got.
10:48 Even if it's a day off, let your mind get away from basketball, but also let it also
10:55 reflect on the blessings that you do have in playing basketball at a university like
11:01 this, one of the premier universities in the country.
11:06 Kenny, thank you for the time.
11:09 Thank you.