Louisville basketball throws first punch but UK rolls to win in key game for Kenny Payne

Kenny Payne walked through the tunnel alone.

Waiting for him on the other side: the biggest stage of his head-coaching career.

For all the uncertainty surrounding Payne's future at the helm of the Louisville men’s basketball team heading into Thursday's rivalry game vs. No. 9 Kentucky at the KFC Yum! Center, he had the next 40 minutes to live in absolutes.

Starting with the biggest non-negotiable of all — fight like hell, no matter what.

"The only way for us to win is to go out and be the aggressor," the second-year coach said Wednesday, "to go out and fight for what you want, to go out and understand, 'You’re protecting your home.'"

His team threw the first punch and, as he and UK head coach John Calipari both pointed out during their postgame news conferences, won the second half by a point. But it could not escape what felt inevitable heading into the 56th installment of Cardinals vs. Wildcats.

Kentucky led for more than 33 minutes and by as many as 26 points en route to a 95-76 victory — U of L's 22nd loss by double digits across Payne's first 44 games at his alma mater.

A quick snapshot of where the program is right now: With 10 minutes, 3 seconds to play in the second half and the Wildcats leading 71-47, UK fans filled the Yum! Center with a Blue-White chant. A Louisville supporter sitting in the student section wore a frowning paper-bag mask over their head.

It was a different scene out of the gate.

With athletics director Josh Heird sitting courtside — and a story from The Athletic's Brendan Quinn saying Heird hasn't "discussed with Payne any assurance that he'll make it to the end of this season" serving as a backdrop — the Cards (5-7, 0-1 ACC) forced stops on UK's first five possessions and jumped to a 5-0 lead, igniting the home portion of a divided crowd of 17,293.

For a brief moment, Payne accomplished a goal he outlined Tuesday night during his weekly radio show: "show that we’re capable of winning the game."

"If we do what we're supposed to do," he told reporters Wednesday, "I think we've got a fighting chance."

That chance slipped away in a hurry — from a one-point lead, 12-11, at the 14:12 mark to a 13-point deficit, 31-18, with 8:21 remaining in the first half. And it's because U of L lost its edge on the defensive end and let the Wildcats' best shooter get hot.

That would be Antonio Reeves, who scored 17 of his game-high 30 points during the final 11:24 before the break, eight of which came during Kentucky's 14-2 run to take a 20-point lead into halftime, 53-33, after Louisville fought back to within eight, 39-31, with 3:28 to play.

"Our biggest thing is continuing to try to put 40 minutes together," said Skyy Clark, who led the Cards with 20 points and five assists against three turnovers.

"We'll have 30 minutes — a great game — but those 10 minutes will really hurt us."

The closest it got after halftime was 17 points.

UK (9-2) made more than half (51.5%) of its shots; dominated from 3-point range (36-12) and the paint (40-26); and scored 19 points off 13 Louisville turnovers. But Calipari credited his former assistant and longtime friend's team for at least, in his opinion, not letting go of the rope.

"You have to understand, we lost the second half by a point," he said, "which tells you Kenny's team never stopped. They just kept playing."

Added Wildcats big man Tre Mitchell, "I think that anybody watching the game could see that there was no point where they gave up or they lost any fight."

To be clear, U of L is too prominent a program to deal in moral victories; and losing to its biggest rival by 19 points instead of 23 like it did at Rupp Arena last season is certainly not one of them.

But Payne insisted afterward that "the gap is closing" in the rivalry — albeit, amid speculation that this could have been his last time participating in it as the Cards' head coach.

"I feel like we're headed in the right direction," he said. "We've still got a lot of work to do. I've got a lot of work to do. I've got to be better. I'm not saying I have all the answers."

This is one of his answers: Payne pointed to the need to add veteran players through the NCAA transfer portal, calling it the "next step" to "take this over the hump" — not a "microwave type of situation" like he did during a podcast appearance over the summer.

So, why not do that between Year 1 and Year 2 instead of bringing in guys like Danilo Jovanovich, who logged only two minutes as a freshman at Miami last season and scored his first points in a Louisville uniform Thursday, and Koron Davis, a junior college prospect whose botched dismissal from the team Dec. 13 went down as one of the biggest blunders of Payne's tenure to date?

"We won four games last year," he said. "So, when you go to talk to kids who are high-level kids, they want to know, 'Coach, are you going to win more than four games? How can I come to Louisville and win (only) four games?'"

The outlook on KenPom.com is not optimistic that the Cards will do much better than that this season. As of Friday morning, they are not favored to win a game until they host Notre Dame on Feb. 21. That's it.

So, potentially staring down the barrel of 15 consecutive losses and a 6-25 regular season, what's keeping the players going?

"It's about staying together and not focusing on the outside noise," said Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, who posted his third straight double-double (16 points, 11 rebounds) vs. Kentucky. "We feel it. We don't want to feel this way. But it's just about staying together and staying within ourselves."

Louisville won't take the court again until Jan. 3, when ACC play begins in earnest with a 7 p.m. tipoff at Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena.

Clark and Huntley-Hatfield agreed the break will be good for the team. They also agreed on something else.

"We're still rocking with KP," Clark said.

"Forever," Huntley-Hatfield interjected.

"We have no control over what decisions are being made," Clark continued, "and we don't even have time to worry about that."

Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basketball tops Louisville Cards in key game for Kenny Payne