Let’s get two things out of the way straight from the jump:
1) No one — or at least very few people and certainly no one rational — is arguing that Kenny Payne deserves to be fired three games (and two exhibitions) into his tenure.
2) No one — or at least very few people and certainly no one rational — was saying going into this season that Louisville was “immediately going to be contending for a national title” under Payne, or anything remotely close to that.
We can have a million different discussions about the current state of the Louisville men’s basketball program, and we can have all of them without bringing any straw men into the equation.