What does Kenny Payne’s departure mean for the future of Kentucky basketball recruiting?
Longtime Kentucky basketball assistant Kenny Payne is headed to the NBA, and there’s no way to minimize the impact his departure will have on the Wildcats’ program.
Payne joined John Calipari’s coaching staff in 2010 — following Calipari’s first season at UK — and he has since established himself as the highest-paid assistant in college basketball. He’s a renowned teacher of post players. And he’s arguably the most celebrated recruiter among the sport’s non-head coaches.
It was announced Tuesday that Payne is headed to the New York Knicks, and his exit from Lexington will leave a major hole in Kentucky basketball, especially on the recruiting trail.
“It’s big,” Rivals.com national analyst Corey Evans told the Herald-Leader. “I don’t want to slight the other assistants on staff, because they’re great as well, but Kenny is the renowned guy on staff. He’s kind of like the player whisperer. He’s that big uncle, big dad, big brother — whatever you want to call it. Heck, once guys leave Kentucky, some talk more about Kenny Payne than they do about John Calipari. And that’s because of the relationship that they have with him. Whether it’s on the floor or off the floor, or on the recruiting side. So, yeah, it’s definitely a big loss.”
Payne has been praised by Kentucky players past and present for his calming influence and fatherly presence within the Wildcats’ program. His loss will be felt across every spectrum of UK basketball. And all of those aspects of his impact on the team will stem back to recruiting.
When discussing the ongoing recruiting rivalry between Kentucky and Duke a few years ago, former 247Sports national analyst Evan Daniels steered a conversation about then-Blue Devils assistant coach Jeff Capel right back to Payne. He said then that you couldn’t talk about one without mentioning the other, calling Capel — now the head coach at Pittsburgh — and Payne the top two recruiters in all of college basketball.
“I think Kenny Payne is one of the premier coaches in the country, in terms of recruiting,” Daniels said then. “I think that’s evident. He’s been a huge part of Kentucky’s success and ability to build top-tier classes.”
Not only was Payne instrumental in landing such players as PJ Washington, Bam Adebayo and Kevin Knox and countless others, he was an unmatched teacher of frontcourt prospects once Kentucky’s top recruits arrived in Lexington, many of them staying for just a year before heading off to the NBA Draft.
Guys like Adebayo, an emerging NBA star, and former No. 1 draft picks Anthony Davis and Karl-Anthony Towns go out of their way to sing Payne’s praises, touting his ability to connect with players off the court and make them better on it. Nick Richards’ recent evolution after three years under Payne’s tutelage was well-documented. And even though those players are several years older than today’s recruits, the relationships aren’t lost on such prospects and their families. That ongoing praise has organically turned into another recruiting pitch for big men: come to Kentucky, and you know you’ll get better.
“I think after a while, it did,” Evans said of the trickle-down effect of the results Payne was getting. “Because he was recruiting the same type of kids every time. Those elite kids. And those elite kids and their parents, they talk — class to class. And it was kind of his presence, too. He has a presence about him. Of course, there’s his physical stature. But he has a presence as Cal’s right-hand man. And there’s only four or five assistant coaches that have a reputation like that, a presence like that. And he’s one of them.”
It’s understood that when a head coach like Calipari or Mike Krzyzewski or Roy Williams walks into a kid’s living room or shows up at his high school gym, it’s a major deal. Payne was the rare assistant coach who could garner such a response. And though he often downplayed recruiting in general and took a more low-key approach than others in the sport, the results spoke volumes. And his pitch obviously resonated with players and their families.
“I think (it’s) building relationships,” Payne told the Herald-Leader last fall of his philosophy on recruiting. “You guys use the word ‘recruiting.’ I just don’t know what that is. The days of recruiting are gone, in my eyes. You have to build relationships and make judgments on the relationships that you’ve built. Personally, I want to be the guy who — if the kid doesn’t come to Kentucky — I want them to be able to have a good enough relationship with me to say, ‘Kenny, talk me through this situation.’ And always know that there’s somebody that cares.
“And as you go through and you build these relationships, it becomes obvious who fits what we do, and who doesn’t.”
Evans pointed to a recent poll by longtime college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman, who asked coaches within the Southeastern Conference to name the top assistants in the league. Payne ended up at No. 1.
“That wasn’t media based. That was voted by his peers — coaches within the league,” Evans said. “And that’s accurate, I think. It reflected what we think of Kenny, what coaches in the business think of Kenny, and also what parents and recruits think of Kenny.”
Replacing Kenny Payne
Even before Payne accepted a new role as assistant coach with the Knicks, there was talk that longtime Calipari assistant Bruiser Flint would ultimately be his replacement.
Flint has known the UK head coach for more than 30 years. A Philadelphia native, he joined Calipari’s coaching staff at UMass in 1989 — after Cal’s first season as a college head coach — and stayed on through Calipari’s departure for the NBA in 1996. Flint was named UMass’ head coach after that, spent five years in charge of the Minutemen and then another 15 seasons as the head coach at Drexel. He has spent the past three years as an assistant coach under Archie Miller at Indiana after two decades running his own program.
An official announcement that Flint will join Kentucky’s coaching staff is expected soon. So, what will the 55-year-old coaching veteran bring to the Wildcats from a recruiting standpoint?
“I’m not sure it’s apples to apples with Kenny Payne,” Evans said. “And I don’t want to slight Bruiser, because Bruiser was a head coach for a long time at Drexel, and it’s never easy to slide over from a head coach who’s kind of a closer in a sense — but is also dealing with the (big picture) — compared to the assistant coach, who’s the starter and is more on the road, doing more of the grunt work.
“Indiana, during his time there, they’ve brought in more and more talent. And they’ve gotten that program back to respectability. And Bruiser was a big part of that.”
The Hoosiers have indeed been resurgent on the recruiting trail over the past few years, including a high-profile commitment from in-state star Romeo Langford, whom Flint had a major impact in getting to Bloomington.
Indiana had the nation’s No. 10 recruiting class in 2018, landed McDonald’s All-American Trayce Jackson-Davis in 2019, and the Hoosiers are bringing in the No. 16 class this year, according to the 247Sports composite rankings. Evans said Flint’s “extensive” ties to the East Coast — combined with the name brand of Kentucky basketball and Calipari — could open up more recruiting doors for the Wildcats.
Flint could have a lesser role in recruiting at Kentucky than Payne did, however. Above all, he’ll be another trusted adviser to Calipari, who has often mentioned him glowingly over the years.
“And I’ll say this: Archie Miller is not hiring anyone that’s not going to work,” Evans said. “You’re going to immediately know that Bruiser Flint is a hard-working guy with an extensive network.
“And Cal is someone that it’s all about who he can trust. And with Bruiser, he knows he can trust him. And hopefully he is someone that can hold Cal accountable. He can tell Cal when, ‘Hey, that’s not the right idea.’ There’s that extensive background between Cal and Bruiser that has lasted 30 years.”
Barbee and Justus
Payne’s departure could also allow for returning assistant coaches Tony Barbee and Joel Justus to expand their own national recruiting profiles.
Barbee was a highly touted recruiter for Calipari at Memphis before going out on his own as a head coach at UTEP and, later on, Auburn. Often overlooked for his recruiting success as a Kentucky assistant, Barbee has nonetheless been instrumental in the recruitments of players such as Tyrese Maxey and incoming UK freshman Terrence Clarke, and he very nearly swayed No. 1 national prospect Cade Cunningham from Oklahoma State in this past recruiting cycle, something that would have been considered a major upset since Cunningham’s brother is on the Cowboys’ coaching staff.
Justus, who was a high school coach in North Carolina before joining Kentucky’s staff in 2014, has pulled in such players as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Immanuel Quickley, Keldon Johnson, Brandon Boston Jr. and Devin Askew, and he’s often the UK assistant who makes first contact with younger recruits.
“It’s all about playing to your role, and those guys knew what their role was,” Evans said. “They knew that Kenny was the home run hitter. But those guys can also carry their weight. And Tony was also a head coach and has run his own program. And I think Joel is a rising star. He’s someone who really works at it. He came to Kentucky without the network base that Tony and Kenny had, and now he can go blow to blow with anyone in America. And I think if he has a longer leash to go about that, it definitely helps out Joel. And it definitely helps out Kentucky.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 12:12 PM.
