Kentucky Basketball: How Kenny Payne’s departure impacts Wildcats future

How does the loss of assistant coach Kenny Payne affect Kentucky Basketball and John Calipari moving forward?

Without any hesitation, it can easily be said that Kentucky Basketball has been one of the nation’s best programs under John Calipari. He arrived in Lexington in 2009, inheriting a mess left behind by Billy Gillispie, and immediately turned the Wildcats back into a powerhouse program.

Calipari was responsible for four Final Four runs in a five-year span, including leading Kentucky to the national championship in 2012. He had been enormously successful at Massachusetts and Memphis in the years before, and the success has clearly continued.

Recruiting has never been an issue for Calipari, who could likely build a championship contender on his own, but the recent loss of Kenny Payne from his coaching staff could have an impact on the program. Payne spent ten years on Calipari’s bench and was instrumental in landing some of the nation’s top recruits. He departed last week for an assistant coaching position with the New York Knicks, seemingly the only thing that would have ripped him away from Calipari’s staff.

With Payne’s absence posing a sudden hole on Kentucky’s coaching staff, Calipari acted fast, hiring former UMass and Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint, one of his former assistants with the Minutemen. With no disrespect meant to Flint, he has some pretty large shoes to fill. Even as Calipari continues to get older, there’s no reason to believe his coaching or recruiting is about to suffer, but the loss of Payne does raise a few questions.

One factoid that’s hard to ignore is the considerable struggle exhibited by John Calipari’s coaching tree. He has had a great number of former aides and players end up in head coaching gigs, but the success has been rare. Current assistant Tony Barbee really struggled at Auburn, while former recruiting guru Orlando Antigua had a disastrous stint at South Florida. Josh Pastner might be the brightest star, but Memphis fans know how he failed to maintain Calipari’s momentum with the program.

There are other former Calipari assistants we could focus on, but I think the point has been made. Former assistants like Derek Kellogg and John Robic really struggled to lead their own programs, but what does this mean for Calipari? He’s always been an elite recruiter, even if some of his assistants haven’t exactly transformed into a Chris Beard or Tony Bennett. Still, without Payne, there will be challenges moving forward for Kentucky.

It’s easy to be accustomed to success, and the lack of a Final Four run since 2015’s near-perfect season could make Wildcats’ fans anxious. Kentucky remains an elite program among the best in the SEC, but any program that loses their best assistant should be a little nervous.

He put in hard work on the recruiting trail and on the practice court, building these players into the best forms of themselves. Payne was seen as a potential successor to Calipari, though of course, he could still do that after a brief stint in the NBA.

The bottom line is that a huge part of Kentucky’s success just departed for the New York Knicks. Payne’s exit isn’t going to dramatically shake things up for the Wildcats; they’ll still be a title threat, but it’s still a major loss. Payne had a deep connection with some of the young men he recruited to Lexington, and it’s hard to match the man that he was on this coaching staff.

There are still going to be incredibly talented 5-star recruits in Lexington, but it’s clear that Bruiser Flint has his work cut out for him filling those shoes.