John Calipari and Kenny Payne share a stage in Louisville. Here’s what they had to say.
A few months before they’ll occupy opposing sidelines at Rupp Arena to tip off a new era of the Kentucky-Louisville basketball rivalry, John Calipari and Kenny Payne shared a stage — and more than a few laughs — Wednesday night.
The two head coaches — Calipari entering his 14th season in charge of UK’s program, Payne entering his first in U of L’s top job — were the keynote speakers for the Kentucky Chamber’s annual dinner.
The joint appearance — in front of about a thousand people packed into a ballroom at the Louisville Marriott Downtown — was a moderated conversation in which the coaches and former colleagues reflected on their decade spent together at Kentucky, looked ahead to the future with their respective programs, and offered advice on lessons learned through two celebrated careers at the highest levels of college basketball.
At the heart of the discussion, of course, was this new chapter in the state’s most heated sports rivalry.
“I think when we talk about the rivalry, the one thing that we have to remember — it’s not on this man to bring the rivalry,” Payne said, gesturing toward Calipari. “It’s on us. It’s on the University of Louisville. Because this state is going to only be as good as we both are. And that’s one of the reasons I took this job. We need this rivalry to be intense, respectful, but also very competitive. If Kentucky is way on top and Louisville is way on the bottom, it’s not where it needs to be.
“I can’t begin to tell you how many people called me: ‘Kenny, you’ve gotta take the job so that we can have both of these schools on top.’”
Payne, who left his position as an assistant coach with the New York Knicks this year to take the reins of his alma mater, made similar comments to a handful of reporters who gathered at the hotel just before the keynote conversation began Wednesday night.
“We have to build a culture to where it’s a real rivalry again,” he said.
The former Kentucky assistant coach — Payne spent 10 years on Calipari’s staff before joining the Knicks in 2020 — has his work cut out for him in the short term.
UK and U of L will enter this season with radically different expectations nationally.
Kentucky is projected as a top-five team and a legitimate contender for the national championship. Louisville is expected to be in more of a rebuilding mode through Payne’s first season.
The Cardinals are not viewed as an NCAA Tournament team in 2023, according to the latest Bracketology projection from ESPN, which also does not include U of L among the first eight teams on the outside of the tourney bubble. UK is a No. 1 seed in those projections.
Senior guard El Ellis is the only returning player who averaged at least eight points per game last season, when the Cards finished with a 13-19 record and Chris Mack was fired midway through the campaign.
Payne has a few intriguing additions to the Louisville roster — including four-star recruit Kamari Lands and Tennessee transfer Brandon Huntley-Hatfield — but there are also some roster holes, especially in the backcourt, and it’s clear even two months before the start of the season that Kentucky should expect to be a clear favorite when the teams meet Dec. 31 in Lexington.
On this night, the two longtime friends seemed genuinely pleased to be sharing the spotlight together before their relationship goes into full rivalry mode a few months from now.
“I mean, I love John Calipari. He feels the same about me,” Payne said before taking the stage. “Obviously, we know that we have jobs that make us go at each other. And at the end of the day, (when) we compete against each other, he wants to beat my head, as he’s said already.
“And I want to win a game. By one.”
Kentucky vs. Louisville rivalry
Payne said several times throughout the night that he would just like to beat Kentucky by a single point, downplaying expectations for his team in year one, acknowledging the uphill battle the Cards will face out of the gate, and adopting a “win or learn” approach for this season.
The Kentucky coach spent a good portion of the night talking up Payne’s ability as a coach and mentor, as well as his fit as the person to lead Louisville basketball into a new era. Calipari also wished U of L — “a program that is so vital for our state,” he said — plenty of future success under the leadership of his longtime and trusted assistant. Just as long as that success doesn’t come at the Wildcats’ expense.
“When we play, I want to beat you by a hundred,” Calipari joked at one point.
He said Payne, who won a national title as a Louisville player in 1986, was the “exact person” to lead the Cardinals as head coach. He said he looked forward to watching the program grow and acknowledged that, while excited, he was going to “hate” coaching against Payne.
The pair traded compliments, joked about their time spent together, and offered up self-deprecating one-liners in the hourlong conversation that included several moments of laughter from the convention goers.
Payne was commending Calipari and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear for their work this year — along with other lawmakers — on name, image and likeness reforms when he unintentionally stumbled into one of the best exchanges of the night. The U of L coach stressed that NIL shouldn’t be a reason for a player to choose his school — a notion Calipari seconded — but instead the “cherry on top” of a decision to play for a program like Louisville or Kentucky, noting that lucrative opportunities would be there.
“This is a basketball state …” Payne said, before he was interrupted by his former boss.
“Careful,” Calipari interjected with a lilt of humor in his voice, an unspoken reference to his own “basketball school” comment last month that irked Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops, riled up the UK fan base, and led to an intra-athletics department showdown in Lexington.
There was a roar of laughter from the crowd. Once that died down, Payne tried to cover his tracks.
“I said state. I don’t want to get in that,” he said.
That led to a question about Calipari’s seemingly tenuous relationship with Stoops, who led the Cats to a victory at Florida on Saturday night, vaulting UK into the top 10 nationally.
“He is a terrific coach and a good man. He and I are fine,” Calipari said, after talking up the recent accomplishments of the UK football program. He then gestured toward Payne, reminding the crowd who had made the “basketball state” remark.
“And he said that. Not me!” Calipari exclaimed to more laughter.
When the festivities were finished, Calipari and Payne left the stage to go their separate ways. Payne will look to rebuild a storied program that has fallen on hard times over the past few years. Calipari will look to rekindle the considerable postseason success of his early tenure, four Final Fours and a national title in his first six seasons, but none in the past seven.
Both have been around the highest levels of college basketball long enough to know that no matter what the circumstances — whether you’re a Hall of Fame coach or a widely beloved alum — at places like Kentucky and Louisville, every loss brings scrutiny, and you’re always under the microscope.
A question about managing fan expectations was quickly interrupted by Calipari. “We don’t do that here,” he said, his tone comical but the sentiment serious. “That is not doable in our state.”
He acknowledged the heartbreak and frustration that came as a result of Kentucky’s shocking NCAA Tournament loss to Saint Peter’s in March, a game that happened six months ago Saturday but one that many UK faithful will likely never get over.
Calipari, who is still seeking his first trip to the Final Four since 2015, pointed out the nature of the college basketball postseason. Kentucky defeated the two national finalists — eventual champ Kansas and runner-up North Carolina — by 18 and 29 points, respectively, during the regular season, only to lose to the 15-seeded Peacocks in the first game of the tournament.
That loss took a toll on UK’s coaches and players, Calipari said, adding that it also provided “fuel” for the upcoming season, one UK hopes will end much differently.
“That’s basketball. That’s that NCAA Tournament,” Calipari said. “… It humbled all of us. It humbled me. You go back and look at the tape, and then you go back and look at every play. ‘What could we have done? What should I have done?’
“You know what? That’s behind us now. Now it’s, ‘We go forward.’ And, ‘Let’s do this.’ But it was hard to get by.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
