Exclusive: as Duke Basketball Alu Become Louisville’s Head Coach

Duke basketball national champ Nolan Smith could be in line for a difficult job.

On January 23, when Duke basketball visits Louisville, there’s a chance Nolan Smith, Jon Scheyer’s former teammate in Durham in his second season as head coach of the Blue Devils, will take over as interim coach.

Louisville’s head coach, Kenny Payne, is in his second year of leadership but is still short of ten career victories (8-24 overall). Insiders, however, have indicated that his tenure as head coach is likely coming to an end given the Cardinals’ (4-6, 0-1) most recent humiliation—a 75-63 home loss to Arkansas State on Wednesday night.

Louisville will play Pepperdine on Sunday at 2:00 PM ET.

Additionally, on Friday afternoon, Smith, who is 35 years old, was mentioned by anonymous national college basketball insider “Trilly Donovan” as a potential candidate to take over temporarily:

“Danny Manning has declined the chance to serve as interim head coach, according to multiple sources, and Nolan Smith is still thinking about it. Additionally, external hires are being considered; the most talked-about candidate among them is Mark Lieberman, a former assistant at Louisville.”

Nolan Smith rose to stardom as a junior guard for Duke basketball in 2009–10, teaming up with junior forward Kyle Singler and then-senior guard Jon Scheyer to help the Blue Devils win the fourth of their current five national titles.

Smith played two seasons as a backcourt reserve for the Portland Trail Blazers after being selected No. 21 overall in the 2011 NBA Draft. He concluded his playing career in the NBA D-League in 2014–15 and abroad.

In February 2016, he started working as a special assistant for Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski. He was appointed director of basketball operations and player development for the programme two years later. In 2021, Coach K elevated him to the position of full-time assistant, working alongside Scheyer.

But rather than stay on the Duke basketball bench under Scheyer’s direction after Krzyzewski retired in 2022, Smith consented to an assistant position under Payne at Louisville, where his father, Derek Smith, won a national title as a player in 1980.