Kenny Payne set to join Arkansas coaching staff
John Calipari made his first official coaching staff hire Thursday with the hiring of former assistant and most-recently former Louisville head coach Kenny Payne as associate head coach.
Payne signed a three-year contract that will pay him $900,000 annually through 2026-27, HawgBeat learned through a Freedom of Information Act request. The contract includes a non-compete clause, plus a $50,000 bonus for an NCAA Tournament appearance and another $50,000 bonus for a Sweet Sixteen appearance.
According to The Courier Journal, the 57-year-old is owed a buyout of $7.25 million by Louisville. Payments of $201,388.88 began "on or about" Monday, April 1, when Payne's employment was effectively terminated without cause, and they'll end "on or about" March 31, 2027, according to the report.
Most people will associate Payne with his brief stint as the head coach of the Cardinals, where he amassed a 12-52 record over two seasons. Before that, though, he served as an assistant coach under Calipari at Kentucky for ten seasons, from 2010-11 to 2019-20. Payne spent his final six seasons in Lexington as associate head coach.
In those 10 years, Kentucky saw unrivaled success in the college basketball world, winning a national championship, finishing as a runner up, making four Final Four appearances, six Elite Eight appearances and seven Sweet Sixteen appearances. The Wildcats made eight NCAA Tournament appearances in those ten years, only missing the tournament once, with the 2020 NCAA Tournament being cancelled, and only failing to reach the second weekend once in 2016.
The dynamic duo of Payne and Calipari have won a great deal of basketball games together, with a record of 295-74 (79.9%). Payne tried his hand at the NBA after the 2020 season, spending two years with the New York Knicks as an assistant coach before ultimately taking the Cardinals' head coaching job.
While Payne had trouble finding success after Kentucky, so did Calipari without his right-hand-man. In the four seasons without Payne, Calipari led Kentucky to three NCAA Tournament appearances with a 1-3 postseason record over that span.
The pair come back together in hopes of finding the level of success they shared at Kentucky for a decade.