Scott Drew, Jerome Tang Listed as Candidates for Louisville Job
Louisville has reportedly made the decision to fire head basketball coach Kenny Payne after two abysmal seasons and will begin the search for a new face for their program.
The Cardinals have been one of the biggest college basketball brands for quite some time now, and when sharing the state with a program like Kentucky, there’s always a heavy demand for being competitive.
That’s why it should come as no surprise that the short list of candidates to fill the Cardinals’ vacancy includes some of the sport’s biggest names.
Mick Cronin, Dusty May, Shaka Smart, and Eric Musselman all make the cut for 247Sports’ top candidates, but two Big 12 names seem to jump right off the page. The first of those is Baylor head coach Scott Drew.
“If we had to identify somebody who may be starting at the top of Louisville’s wish list it is more than likely Scott Drew,” Eric Bossi writes. “What he’s done during his 21 years at Baylor is nothing short of miraculous and is arguably the greatest turnaround in the history of college basketball.
“For those who somehow aren’t familiar, Drew took over a scandal ridden program with next to zero basketball tradition and has built the Bears into a perennial winner. It would be impossible for us to put into words how difficult it must have been to take a team that due to NCAA penalties was at one point only allowed to play conference games with a limited number of scholarships and turn them into a National Championship winning program and yearly contender.”
Sound familiar with Cardinals fans? Drew would be the perfect candidate to turn things around at UL after the state the program was left in following Rick Pitino’s tenure. Bossi goes on to suggest that Louisville might have the horses to pull off the improbable as well.
“…There is no question that Baylor has upped their game when it comes to facilities and resources, but they probably can’t compete with what Louisville might be able to do in terms of NIL,” he writes. “There’s a good chance Baylor will build a statue of Drew in front of their new arena if he sticks around. Heck, he’s deserving of one even if he leaves. But if Louisville wants to be the program that their fans want it to be, then they have the resources to go after Drew with a strong offer.”
Kansas State’s Jerome Tang also comes up on Bossi’s list, and despite having less than two full seasons under his belt as a head coach, he’s made quite an impression on the world of college basketball. Plus, if the Cardinals can’t lure Drew away from Waco, who better to target than the man that spent 20 years with him there?
“First, there is what he did in year one with the Wildcats,” Bossi says of Tang. “He hit the transfer portal running. He married that incoming talent with some key returners and put together a team that finished third in the always tough Big 12 conference. They then went on a March Madness run to the Elite Eight.
“Second, his team accomplished so much while playing a style of ball that appeals to recruits. Tang and his staff are deeply in tune with how to market themselves and the program. Both top high school prospects and transfers are gravitating toward the Wildcats, and that’s something that could intrigue Louisville. Yes, there was some dropoff this season, but the Big 12 is loaded, and the Wildcats simply don’t have some of the same resources as teams at the top of the conference.
“Tang was an assistant at Baylor for 20 years. He worked alongside Scott Drew and was a key player in engineering the Bears incredible turnaround that eventually produced a National Championship.”
It appears that folks in Manhattan (Kan.) and Waco (Tex.) had better start doing everything they can to keep their coaches around. And even though it seemed unlikely in the beginning, there might be some smoke to the Louisville noise after all.
