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It’s been over five years since the Rick Pitino Era came to an end at Louisville, as the coach who was able to survive the lascivious scandal that resulted in the men’s basketball program vacating 123 wins (and a national championship) was unable to weather the storm that formed after the school was implicated in the massive FBI investigation that shook college hoops to its core in 2017.
It’s safe to say the Cardinals have had a bit of trouble bouncing back since then. While David Padgett and Chris Mack both posted winning records during their time at the helm, a team that rarely had trouble securing an invite to March Madness during Pitino’s tenure has only appeared in the NCAA Tournament a single time since his departure (a one-and-done showing in 2019).
Louisville was hoping Kenny Payne would be the key to turning things around when it offered the former member of its 1986 championship team his first head coaching opportunity. Payne had more than 15 years of experience as an assistant coach in college and the NBA under his belt when he accepted the gig, but based on what’s transpired so far, it has not translated to his current role.
Louisville opened up the season with losses to Bellarmine, Wright State, and Appalachian State, and things haven’t gotten much better from there. The Cardinals dropped to 0-7 on the season after losing to Maryland in a 79-54 rout on Tuesday night, and they are the only ACC team that’s failed to post a single win over any opponent during the current campaign.
You only need to take a look at their record to know things aren’t going very well, but there’s arguably nothing that sums up the current state of the program than a clip that was filmed during the most recent in what seems poised to be a long line of blowouts.
The Cardinals weren’t officially dead while trailing by 11 points near the end of the first half, but there was at least one fan in attendance at the KFC Yum! Center who’d presumably seen enough based on his decision to pull out a newspaper instead of subjecting himself to another second of Louisville basketball.
Crowd isn’t into it pic.twitter.com/VzoKAhoFQJ
— Mark Johnson (@MarkMyJohnson) November 30, 2022
Woooooof.