Kenny Payne<\/a> walked through the tunnel alone.\u00a0
Waiting for him on the other side: the biggest stage of his head-coaching career.\u00a0
For all the uncertainty surrounding Payne\u2019s future at the helm of the Louisville men\u2019s basketball<\/a> team heading into Thursday\u2019s rivalry game vs. No. 9 Kentucky<\/a> at the KFC Yum! Center<\/a>, he had the next 40 minutes to live in absolutes.\u00a0
Starting with the biggest non-negotiable of all \u2014 fight like hell, no matter what.\u00a0
\u201cThe only way for us to win is to go out and be the aggressor,\u201d the second-year coach said Wednesday, \u201cto go out and fight for what you want, to go out and understand, \u2018You\u2019re protecting your home.\u2019\u00a0
\u201cWe don\u2019t want Kentucky to come in here and feel like everybody\u2019s with them and nobody\u2019s with us. We need them to know we\u2019re going to fight to protect our home.\u201d
His Cardinals (5-7, 0-1 ACC) threw the first punch. But that merely delayed the inevitable.\u00a0
UK (9-2) led for more than 33 minutes and by as many as 26 points en route to a 95-76 victory.
U of L won the second half, 43-42, but suffered its 22nd double-digit loss across Payne\u2019s first 44 games at his alma mater.\u00a0
A 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, Kentucky fans filled the Yum! Center with a Blue-White chant. A Louisville fan sitting in the student section wore a frowning paper-bag mask over their head.\u00a0
It was a different story out of the gate.\u00a0
With U of L athletics director Josh Heird sitting courtside, the Cards got stops on UK\u2019s first five possessions and led, 5-0, at the 17:48 mark to bring the home portion of a divided crowd alive.\u00a0
They clung to a 12-11 advantage with 13:46 to play before halftime.\u00a0
It felt like, for a brief moment, Payne could actually accomplish a goal he outlined Tuesday night during his weekly radio show.\u00a0
\u201cI just hope that we go out and compete hard and show that we\u2019re capable of winning the game,\u201d he told play-by-play announcer Paul Rogers. \u201cI believe that we can if we do the things that we need to do.\u201d
The problem was, Louisville eventually stopped doing those things.
That defensive tenacity from the jump? It didn\u2019t last long. Kentucky shot 50.8% from the field and made half of its 24 3-point attempts, outscoring the Cards from long distance, 36-12.\u00a0
The Wildcats also won the battle of the boards, 37-33, the paint, 40-26, and scored 19 points off 13 U of L turnovers.\u00a0
They built an insurmountable halftime lead, 53-33, behind runs of 15-1 and 14-2.\u00a0
UK\u2019s Antonio Reeves led all scorers with a season-high 30 points on 10-for-16 shooting. He was one of five Kentucky players to break double digits.\u00a0
Skyy Clark paced Louisville with 20 points on 6-for-11 shooting. Brandon Huntley-Hatfied posted a third consecutive double-double: 16 points, 11 rebounds.\u00a0
Louisville won\u2019t take the court again until Jan. 3, when ACC play begins in earnest with a 7 p.m. tipoff at Virginia\u2019s John Paul Jones Arena.
This story will be updated.<\/em>
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Kenny Payne walked through the tunnel alone.\u00a0Waiting for him on the other side: the biggest stage of his head-coaching career.\u00a0For all the uncertainty surrounding Payne\u2019s future at the helm of the Louisville men\u2019s basketball team heading into Thursday\u2019s rivalry game vs. No. 9 Kentucky at the KFC Yum! Center, he had the next 40 minutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n