The Louisville basketball team recently parted ways with head coach Kenny Payne after yet another disastrous season. The Cardinals finished the regular season with an 8-24 record and they finished last in the ACC with a 3-17 mark there. Payne finished his Louisville career with a 12-52 record. The Cardinals are now in need of a new head coach, and former West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins wants it.
After Louisville basketball fired Kenny Payne, it looked like they were going to reach a deal with Florida Atlantic head coach Dusty May. There were a lot of rumors floating around that May was going to go coach the Cardinals, but then, he was swayed away by the Michigan basketball team at the last second. Now, May is with the Wolverines, and Louisville needs to find someone else. Could Bob Huggins be their guy?
Huggins started his head coaching career over 40 years ago when he was the head coach at Walsh, a D2 school in Ohio. He then coached for Akron, Cincinnati and Kansas State before being the head coach at West Virginia from 2007-2023. He had a lot of success as a head coach, but he resigned after a drunk driving incident.
As a head coach, Huggins has an impressive 935-414 overall record, a 34-26 record in the NCAA Tournament and he has been to two final fours. He has proven to be a good head coach if he can avoid issues off the court. The drunk driving incident wasn't all as Huggins also did say a homophobic slur on a radio show recently as well.
“I'm really excited,” Huggins said, according to a tweet from Ethan Bock. “I would be really excited to be there. I would want to be and do what what Coach [Denny] Crum did. I've always had a love for Louisville, believe it or not. I love going to Louisville and playing. I love the fan base, the way the way they embrace the team, the way they they embrace Louisville basketball.”
Who will Louisville go to?
There are other intriguing names besides Bob Huggins floating around for the Louisville basketball opening as well. The Cardinals have been very bad in recent years, but this is traditionally one of the best basketball schools in the country, and it is an attractive job to candidates.
One of the most interesting candidates that Louisville is looking at for this opening is Richard Pitino. Pitino is the son of former Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino who ended up parting ways with the school after a scandal went down. Not everything that happened while Rick was the coach was good, but Louisville did have a lot of success on the court.
Richard Pitino got his head coaching career started back in 2012 with FIU, and then he was the head coach at Minnesota for nine years from 2013-21. He is now with New Mexico, but he is being talked about for the Louisville opening. That would be a pretty crazy turn of events for the Cardinals.
If Louisville ends up landing Huggins or Pitino, it will be a massive story. At the end of the day, they do both have solid backgrounds when it comes to coaching.
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