Louisville’s Pat Kelsey already has more wins than Kenny Payne — and fans are having fun with it

By ADAM ZAGORIA

With Tuesday’s 85-61 win at Syracuse, Louisville improved to 13-5 and 7-1 in the ACC under first-year coach Pat Kelsey.

The Cardinals are riding their first seven-game winning streak since the 2019-20 season and are tied with Clemson for second place in the league, just a game behind Cooper Flagg and unbeaten Duke (15-2, 7-0).

Kelsey, who has Louisville in the mix for an NCAA Tournament bid — ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had them as an 8 seed entering Tuesday — already has more wins (13) in his first year than ex-coach Kenny Payne (12) had in his disastrous two-year tenure.

And fans are having fun with it.

Coach Kelsey quickly moving up the total wins ladder. Just passed Kenny Payne. 😏 pic.twitter.com/MiT9ML6VJ6

— Scott Aleshire (@Cardnul) January 15, 2025

Kelsey is doing this despite injuries to fifth-year forward Kasean Pryor, junior guard Koren Johnson and senior forward Aboubacar Traore. He said in an interview this week that Pryor could potentially come back next season on a medical redshirt after tearing his left ACL in November.

Still, Louisville has four active players averaging double-figures in scoring, including Wisconsin transfer guard Chucky Hepburn (15.6 ppg). He led five players in double-figures with 24 points against Syracuse.

Meantime, as fans pointed out, Louisville is paying Payne more buyout money ($7.25 million) not to coach the team than it is paying Kelsey ($2.3M) to coach the team.

“They like to win around here,” Kelsey said in November after the Cardinals beat Indiana and West Virginia before falling to Oklahoma in the championship game in the Battle 4 Atlantis. “And I was hired for a reason and that’s to put Louisville back in its rightful place in college basketball.”

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