What Kenny Payne, Louisville Players Said After 57-47 Exhibition Loss vs. Lenoir-Rhyne

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Kicking off the Kenny Payne era of the Louisville men's basketball program, the Cardinals got off to a rocky start under their first year head coach, falling 57-47 to Division II Lenoir-Rhyne in exhibition play.

Here's what head coach Kenny Payne, guard/forward Mike James and forward Jae'Lyn Withers to say following the loss:

Head Coach Kenny Payne

(Opening Statement)

“First of all, let me say that Everick (Sullivan’s) team did hell of a job. They moved the ball. They played well together. They have veteran players. They were doing the things that I want my team to do. That I want these guys to do. Ball movement to multiple sides of the court. At times, for most of the game it was three or four times. That means the ball started on one side, got to the other side, got to the other side, got to that side and then somebody shot it. They penetrated and created offense. In the first half, they missed wide open shots and they hit three or four shots under the basket. We didn’t rotate, so they were wide open. They are a well-coached team. Hats off to them. We needed this. We needed this whupping. 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 tried 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. Until you overcome your own obstacles, you can’t worry about a team. You can’t worry about any opponent. It is a lesson of life. If I am depressed, how am I going to worry about the guys that I am in the battlefield with? I am depressed. If I am hurting, if I don’t’ have confidence, how can I worry about anybody else other than me? That is what we are fighting through. We learned a valuable lesson.”

(About lack of points in the paint)

“There were two possessions the whole game where the ball got into the paint more than once. Just two. I don’t know another way to say it, but from the day I walked in here, I have been saying ‘multiple paint touches and multiple passes’. So the ball goes pass, pass, pass, pass, drive it, pass it out, drive it again then see what we have. I have been preaching it. What happens when you are tentative? What happens when you are apprehensive? What happens when you are fearful of failure? You are afraid to drive that ball. Then when you do drive it and the defense collapses, which is what you want the defense to do, you have to be strong enough mentally and physically to make a pass to a teammate. We had sixteen turnovers. We got the ball to the lane multiple times twice. That is unbelievable.”

(About having no fastbreak points)

“I want to play fast. I talked to the team about it. Why do I take you to the track once a week? So that you learn to run. Why do I talk about when the rebound is happening, El (Ellis), Fabio (Basili), Hercy (Miller) you are looping up the court to catch the ball moving up the court so that we can get in transition faster. For whatever reason, it did not translate. They were on their heels. Initially, we started out with good energy – pretty good energy. Then when we subbed, everything went out the window. They go beer muscles. They felt good about what they were doing and they put us on our heels. That is a problem. You have to be confident and know what a game plan is and know why we are doing it. We want to get out and run. We do. I am not telling any one to walk the ball up the court. I know what that means. When you look at that, you see zero fast break points and you see 47 points in that game. That means we played half court offense. That means that we are stagnant. There is no coach, no team, nowhere, that can win games with no fast break points.”

(About defensive play around and away from the ball)

“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. My game plan is to make teams beat us with tough twos. Tough two is: the ball is in front of me and you are not getting threes off penetration. We are starting off the line and getting two point shooters. If you are going to shoot a three, it is going to be contested or we are going to contest it at the rim. You saw that we did not fight to keep the ball in front of us. Then they get layups, which means we have to collapse and then they are getting threes. We didn’t resist them from anything they wanted to do.”

(About El Ellis’ game)

“I thought El started the game, and you saw it early, he had six of our seven assists. He started the game well. But there was a point in the second half where he had two fouls because he is slowing down mentally and there was a point in the second half where he was like ‘I have to score’. The second he went that route; his success rate went down. When you are playing this game and you are trying to score, it is not going to work. When you are playing this game and trying to understand this concept of what you are trying to do offensively and you let the offense come to you, it looks natural. You can’t drive the ball and take four or five pumps. The defense is going to collapse on you, especially a team like that is well-coached. Hopefully, we know he is way better than that, right? We do know that. Hopefully, we in this room and we in this community know that El Ellis is a very good basketball player. He has to go out, and I understand what the magnitude of his position and what he means to this team -- not just in scoring but how he approaches the game.“

(About the perimeter players)

“I thought they were tentative. I thought that when the ball was on the opposite side of the court, I am teaching, we are teaching, the ball moves, moves, moves and it hits your hand, you see it before and you attack the gap. What I saw was the ball moved and we just ball-watched, the ball goes here and we ball-watched, the ball hits the hand and now he is looking to see where he could drive. You know where you are driving long before the ball hits your hands. You know the gaps long before it hits your hand. You know that when you do attack the lane, you attack with force, and they are going to collapse and you have be strong enough to know ‘I have to make passes, I can’t force it.’ This leads to when we are tentative, it leads to 16 turnovers.”

(About his message to the team after the game)

“We needed this. 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 going to say this, I'm trying to establish a culture and that culture is going to have some adversity in it, how do you handle it? Right out the gate, we're going to see who we are. You just lost to a team that you should never have lost to. They are a good team, a very good team, but you should not have lost to them. How will you go and handle that adversity, how? That's what I'm really looking forward to seeing.”

(About the fans reaction to the loss)

“I hope that they understand that this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. I say it all the time and everybody laughs when I say it. Danny Manning, Kenny Payne, Milt Wagner, Reece Gaines, Nolan Smith, we're not shooting any balls, we're not. On paper, you look at our staff and you're like, ‘oh my goodness, they're going to win every game.’ But they're not playing, these guys are playing. So, my point to that is that at the end of the day, we're trying to teach them winning basketball, a winning culture. 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.”

(About starting Brandon and Jae’Lyn both on the floor together and what was his assessment)

“Initially, I liked it. I liked the fact that we got the ball in the lane a couple of times. El did a great job, Mike James made a couple of threes, Jae’Lyn showed what he's capable of when he's in rhythm and playing well. I need more from Brandon and I need more from Sydney. But I like that lineup. The way I'm looking at this as I have nine or 10 guys that all could start. I'm not obligated to anything or anybody or any lineup. I just want to win and I want to have continuity on the court. What's the best group that plays well together? That's who I’m going with.”

(About the young guys’ performance for the first time in front of fans and against another team)

“It's hard to say until you look at the film, but I think when we subbed the first time you saw a momentum switch. So, you saw the aggressors, Louisville initially, then at the four or five-minute mark of playing, we subbed. I want to give everybody an opportunity to play so I can evaluate everybody. Then you saw a lack of effort, a lack of defense, a lack of togetherness, a lack of momentum switching to the other team, and then they got confidence, and then from that point on we were on our heels. So, I believe in Kamari Lands, I believe in Devin Ree, I believe in all of these guys, but they have to go out and prove it. Just because I believe in you doesn't mean you will succeed. I'm here to support you, love you, coach you, mentor you, teach you what winning basketball is. You have to go out and perform, you have to go out and fight. I tell every player in the huddle I don't care if you miss every shot, just miss it with confidence. I don't care if you turn the ball over, do it confidently. I don't care if you miss a rebound, it's going to happen. Play with confidence, believe in what you're doing, play with energy and I'm good.”

Guard/Forward Mike James and Forward Jae'Lyn Withers

(About Mike James playing again)

Mike James: “It was great. I wish we would’ve come out with a win but for me, coming off an injury, it felt good.”

(About after Payne subbed, and losing momentum. What was the take on what changed and how the game got away)

Mike James: “I felt like our second group had a lapse in energy. Going forward that’s what we’re going to need from our second group coming in. They’re going to have to bring more energy and pop to the game.”

Jae’Lyn Withers: “We saw a couple of baskets go in for them and the lead shorted. That’s when we hit some adversity. We needed to keep the energy up and we failed to do that today. It’s a learning lesson for sure. I think we’re going to come into practice Tuesday and the energy should be a lot better.”

(For Jae’Lyn: about Mike (James) about coming back, what does Mike bring to this team when he’s on the court)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “Mike brings not only intensity and energy but has the capability to knock down timely threes as you guys saw. He can also attack people off the dribble. Mike contributes to all aspects of the game offensive and defensively.”

(For Jae’Lyn, Coach told us that they did some things that he wants you guys to do. Did you see things in the way they moved the ball and the way they executed that are kind of the things that Coach Payne is trying to teach)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “Yeah, I would say so. They’re a really well-coached team. As you can see, or as I guess it said on paper, they have a lot of returners, so I’m pretty sure they have a lot of chemistry with one another. I think that their ball movement and, you know, them playing off one another was a lot more fluid compared to ours.”

(About coach wanting to put this in perspective and that you guys maybe needed a result like this. What was his message to the team after the game)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “I mean, I wouldn’t say that this is the end result that we wanted, but I do think that it’s an eye opener, and we can build off of it. Mike James: “It kind of shows us where we need to improve. 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.”

(About In the second half, with 19 points, and only two baskets until late, what contributed to the struggle on offense)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “I would say we got away from what was working for us in the first half. In the first half, we got multiple lane touches, and we were getting more assists, playing off one another. In the second half, it was a little less of that. I wouldn’t say one on one play, but there wasn’t as many lane touches, and we didn’t really make the defense collapse like we needed them to.”

(About some of the positives that you think you will be able to take away from this game?)

Mike James: “I think in a game like this, you have to look at what you can get better at. I think some of the positives was how we started out the game. I think if we can keep that up the rest of the game, and not have a fall off like we did, I think we’ll be fine, but obviously in a game like this, you try to look at the stuff you can correct and not what you did good.

Jae’Lyn Withers: “I agree with what he said. I think we can definitely build off of the good things that we have. We’ve seen how well we can play with playing off of one another, with everybody engaged and, I guess, with a lot of energy out there. We can look at the bad and see what we can correct, and, I guess, take the good as well.

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

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