After a tumultuous coaching search, Louisville men’s basketball has found its next leader

After a high-profile, and at times tumultuous, search, Louisville has hired its next men’s basketball coach.

On Thursday afternoon, the Cardinals announced the hiring of former Charleston and Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey as the next leader of U of L basketball.

Kelsey (who received a five-year contract that extends through the 2028-29 season) will replace Kenny Payne, a former star player for Louisville who had a disastrous two seasons as the Cardinals’ head coach: Payne went 12-52 across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, a span that included more than 30 losses by double-digit points and a 4-28 record in the 2022-23 season, which marked the most defeats in one season in program history.

Kelsey, 48, was born in Cincinnati and was a guard at Wyoming and Xavier during his college career in the mid-1990s.

In addition to assistant coaching stops at Wake Forest and Xavier, Kelsey’s two head coaching posts in Division I college basketball have come at Winthrop and Charleston.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Pat Kelsey as our new men’s basketball coach,” Louisville athletic director Josh Heird said in a news release. “Pat has proven his ability to build multiple programs to an elite level. He garners great respect as a coach, manager, communicator and motivator who will build strong bonds with his student-athletes, coaches and our fan base. Pat understands the expectations of this storied program and will attack this opportunity with unmatched enthusiasm and work ethic.”

Kelsey was an assistant coach at Wake Forest under Dino Gaudio, who was later an assistant coach at Louisville and pleaded guilty to an extortion charge related to his efforts to extort money from U of L and injure the school’s reputation. Kelsey was also an associate head coach at Xavier under Chris Mack, who was Louisville’s head coach for four seasons from 2018 to 2022. Mack and U of L “mutually agreed to part ways” midway through the 2021-22 season.

As the head coach at Winthrop from 2012 until 2021, Kelsey took the Eagles to the NCAA Tournament on two occasions (2017 and 2021) after winning the Big South Conference Tournament. Winthrop also won the Big South Conference Tournament in 2020, the year that March Madness was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Winthrop — which won Big South regular season championships under Kelsey in 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021 — lost in the first round of both of those NCAA Tournament trips. The Eagles were a 13 seed in 2017 and beaten by 4 seed Butler and they were a 12 seed in 2021 and beaten by 5 seed Villanova.

In 2017, Kelsey was set to become the next head coach at UMass, but declined the job less than an hour before his introductory press conference was to begin.

Kelsey moved on to Charleston of what’s now called the Coastal Athletic Association (formerly known as the Colonial Athletic Association) and has coached the Cougars for the last three seasons. And since Kelsey’s arrival, the Cougars have won in a big way.

After going 17-15 in the 2021-22 season, his first at Charleston, Kelsey has led the Cougars to historic success.

Charleston went 31-4 last season and 27-8 this season. In both seasons, Charleston won the CAA regular season title, tournament championship and made a first-round appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The 31 wins during the 2022-23 season were the most in school history.

In the 2023 edition of March Madness, the Cougars were a 12 seed and lost to 5 seed (and eventual national runner-up) San Diego State in the first round. In this year’s tournament, Charleston was a 13 seed and lost to 4 seed Alabama in the first round.

This season’s Charleston team ranks in the top 25 nationally in 3-point attempts per game (third with 30.6), made 3-pointers per game (eighth with 10.5) and rebounds per game (20th with 39.8).

As such, Kelsey (who owns a career head coaching record of 261-122 across 12 seasons) is 0-4 in NCAA Tournament games as a head coach. He is now the 24th head coach in Louisville’s 110-year history.

Louisville hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2019 and hasn’t won a game in March Madness since 2017.

According to the Charleston Post and Courier, Kelsey’s buyout to leave the Cougars is $1 million.

Per Kelsey’s term sheet with Louisville, he will be paid $2.3 million for each of the 2024-25, 2025-26, 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29 seasons. One-time bonuses are available for Kelsey for accolades such as being named the conference coach of the year ($25,000), winning the ACC Tournament ($50,000) and winning a national championship ($500,000).

According to the term sheet, if the Cardinals appear in the 2025, 2026 or 2027 NCAA Tournaments under Kelsey, then his contract will automatically extend through the 2029-30 season at the same rate of pay.

Kelsey has plenty of work to do in Louisville

With Kelsey now on board at U of L, a dramatic and elongated coaching search has finally come to a close.

From Baylor’s Scott Drew to Michigan’s Dusty May (former the head coach at Florida Atlantic) and even New Mexico’s Richard Pitino (a son of former UK and U of L head coach Rick Pitino), a bevy of college basketball coaches were publicly connected to the coaching vacancy at Louisville, without filling the role.

All the while, the NCAA transfer portal opened and plenty of Louisville players will now likely exit the program.

A total of 10 Cardinals from the 2023-24 roster have entered the portal. Among those players are leading scorer Skyy Clark (13.2 points per game), Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (12.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game), Mike James (12.6 points) and Tre White (12.3 points and 5.9 rebounds).

Kelsey also has a completely blank slate to work with when it comes to recruiting.

U of L has no commits or signees in the 2024 recruiting class. Louisville’s lone 2024 pledge, point guard T.J. Robinson, decommitted from the Cardinals in March.

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