Last October, Josh Heird stood before a crowd of Louisville men's basketball fans gathered inside the Galt House Hotel's Grand Ballroom and asked for patience with head coach Kenny Payne's rebuilding process.

"The wins will come," U of L's athletics director said to conclude his remarks at the team's annual Tipoff Luncheon.

On Wednesday, a block away at the KFC Yum! Center, Heird recounted how that sentiment changed over the course of a disastrous 2023-24 season, which led to the "incredibly difficult" decision to part ways with a man who he believed would "lead our storied program back to national prominence."

In a statement released hours earlier, he said it was "clear that a change is needed to help this program achieve what is expected and attainable."

It boiled down to a lack of "sustained progression" and a projected $2 million ticket revenue shortfall.

"I think it's been hard for people to say, 'Hey, I'm really invested in this program,'" Heird told reporters Wednesday after Payne's tenure ended with a first-round exit from the ACC Tournament in Washington, D.C.

"You can use the old line, 'Winning cures all'; and, unfortunately, we haven't won a whole lot."

Here's a look at how the past two years, which went down as Louisville's worst in the modern era, played out from the athletics director's point of view:

Year 1

Heird made this clear Wednesday.

For all the talk of former players and U of L power brokers pressuring him into hiring Payne in the wake of head coach Chris Mack's ouster, he "never felt" as if he "didn't have the ability to make that decision."

"I hired Kenny," he said. And, even in hindsight, he said there was a lot to like.

Specifically, Heird cited the 57-year-old Mississippi native's "ability to interact and connect with players" and his track record of recruiting success as a longtime assistant on John Calipari's staff at Kentucky.

Still, he said, Payne was stepping into a "less-than-ideal situation" after Mack's four-year tenure ended with consecutive 13-win seasons. The program was also waiting to see whether the Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) would issue a postseason ban stemming from a long-running NCAA investigation into alleged violations under Mack and another former head coach, Hall of Famer Rick Pitino.

There were also "unknowns" in handing Payne the reins of his alma mater with zero first-chair experience. One of the most glaring, in the athletics director's opinion, was "organizational leadership."

How would Payne assemble his staff? Would he be able to identify its strengths and weaknesses? Could he set, and coherently outline, reasonable expectations; put people in positions to meet them; and hold them accountable when they didn't?

"Kenny had never really been given that opportunity to manage a large group of people," Heird said. "I think there were times that it was difficult."

Payne did not make staff changes after the Cards won only four games and lost a program-record 28 during his inaugural season. Rather, when asked after the 2022-23 campaign ended how he planned to evaluate associate head coach Danny Manning and assistants Nolan Smith and Josh Jamieson, he turned the question around and asked, "What's there to evaluate?"

"I have one of the best staffs in college basketball," he said. "I can tell you that they're unique individuals that have had so much success in this game.

"I can't believe you just asked that question, because you're looking at guys who have accomplished more in their life as players — forget coaching. Their experience in life is why I hired them. They are great coaches; and they gave these kids love every day."

A year later, Heird sat everyone down and informed them of a regime change. Afterward, he vehemently disagreed with the notion that they didn't receive adequate backing from his department.

"Am I going to say that every head coach at U of L has everything that they need or they want? No; if that was the case, my job would get a lot easier," he said Wednesday.

"This basketball program is the lifeblood of this athletic department, this university and this city," he later added. "To say that it's not going to be given the resources needed to be successful would be incorrect."

Year 2

On his way out, Payne remained steadfast in his belief that it would take "three or four years" to actualize his vision.

Heird on Wednesday revealed he was "very committed" to allowing Payne two full seasons to show his work.

But in December, with Louisville sitting at 5-7 (0-1 ACC) and CBS Sports' Matt Norlander reporting the athletics director would not "drag this out over the course of the entire season," the furthest Heird would go during an interview with WDRB News' Eric Crawford was to say Payne was going to keep his job "as we move into the new year."

When asked Wednesday why he didn't guarantee the coach would be sticking around until the end of the 2023-24 campaign, Heird said, "I'm not sure I was quite there at that point, to be honest with you.

"Once we got through all of the noise around the Arkansas State game," he said, referencing the drama surrounding junior college transfer Koron Davis' dismissal from the team, "and then, obviously, the (lopsided) Kentucky result, I felt like that would have been an emotional decision.

"This is a highly emotional industry," he added. "I understand how fans feel and how people around the program feel. It's my job to try to take the emotion out of those decisions. That's what I tried to do."

When he did, he realized that, to cut ties after a year and a half would have been "almost unprecedented." So he waited and watched closely for signs of "hope."

He saw a few; specifically, the Cards snapping a 22-game road losing streak in January by upsetting a Miami team that went on to finish one spot above them in the ACC standings and their 101-92 victory against Florida State in early February.

But, in the end, the flashes of improved play weren't sustainable enough. U of L spiraled out of control down the stretch, dropping eight games in a row by a 15.4-point average margin of defeat,

Heird said he remained supportive of Payne despite all signs pointing to his time being up. He didn't attend Tuesday's ACC Tournament loss because he was in Indianapolis for a meeting of the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee but said he was glued to the television broadcast and "caught myself getting really frustrated" when the Cards' porous defense surrendered to the Wolfpack open looks from 3-point range.

After the result went final, the athletics director said he made contact with Payne's representation for the first time to discuss his future. By that point, Heird said, the decision to go in a different direction was analytical.

Louisville averaging 6,504 tickets scanned, and 11,986 tickets sold, per game at the 22,090-seat Yum! Center between 2022-24 didn't help. Neither did remarks from the coach during media availabilities Heird described as frustrating.

That's why he's placing so much stock in the ability to "create that connective tissue" with everyone surrounding the program heading into a pivotal coaching search, his second in as many years.

Payne said he took the job to "bring people together." He did by fostering a near-universal belief that he was not the right person for it.

Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kenny Payne fired: Josh Heird reflects on Louisville basketball tenure