Louisville coach Kenny Payne hired former teammate Milt Wagner, who is also the grandfather of top recruit D.J. Wagner.
Kenny Payne seemed the perfect choice to be the new Louisville basketball coach and it did not surprise me when his first big move was to lure Nolan Smith away from Duke to join his staff.
Smith is a young, rising coach and a dynamic recruiter — sort of like Jai Lucas was at Kentucky for John Calipari before he recently left to join the Duke staff to fill Smith’s spot.
But Payne’s second big move is HUGE and the kind of creative thinking he needs to do to revive the Cardinals. Tuesday he hired former Louisville teammate Milt Wagner as the director of player development and alumni relations.
“I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to surround myself with, not just people that I have had relationships with, but the best of the best. For this university to bring back Milt Wagner, and me being the person that’s starting it, it’s pretty special for me,” Payne said during the press conference.
Many Kentucky fans have wanted someone with a UK connection on Calipari’s bench. Wagner is sixth on Louisville’s all-time scoring list with 1,834 career points and was a starter on the 1986 national championship team.
However, the real buzz about hiring Wagner is what impact it might have on his grandson, D.J. Wagner — one of the nation’s best players and a recruiting priority for Calipari. He’s not a unanimous No. 1 player in the Class of 2023 but he’s close to unanimous.
Remember Milt Wagner was on Calipari’s staff at Memphis in 2000 and that led to Dajuan Wagner, Milt’s son and D.J.’s father, playing for Calipari before being the sixth pick in the 2002 NBA Draft. That relationship was supposed to give Calipari the needed edge to land DJ Wagner but maybe not now with Payne’s move Tuesday to hire Milt Wagner.
A NCAA rule prohibits schools from recruiting a prospect if there is a relative on the athletics staff that is not an assistant or head coach. However, this gets interesting because Wagner is a university employee, not an athletics staff member. That’s why even Louisville officials are not yet certain about DJ Wagner’s recruitment but I have to think Payne knows he’s going to be able to recruit the nation’s top player and has a huge selling point now working at Louisville with him.
3 Responses
Unlike Cal, Kenny put the program and his interest first over the players best interest. There is no way Cal would recruit a one and done player who has no chance of playing in the NCAA Tournament. It will be interesting to see how Kenny progresses. UofL tends to bring out the worse in coaches and players.
So when is the NCAA going to hand down sanctions to Loserville? Surely, a top recruit would have to keep this in mind. Perhaps no tournament for them!
Payne already out smarting cal.