In the middle of his fourth season, Louisville basketball and head coach Chris Mack are parting ways, which brought about strong reactions from the media.
Whenever Louisville basketball hired Chris Mack from Xavier in the wake of the Rick Pitino scandal, the general consensus around the country seemed to be that the Cardinals had knocked it out of the park with their new head coach. Less than four years into his time with the program, though, Mack is now out.
After rumors had been swirling for several days, the Louisville athletic department and Mack reached an agreement on Wednesday to part ways in relatively amicable fashion, most notably with the the now-former head coach getting $4.8 million paid over three years instead of the $12 million buyout that was part of his contract.
Now, Mike Pegues will move up to being the interim head coach from his assistant role while the Cardinals will search for a new head coach to try and get the program back to prominence.
Louisville basketball fires Chris Mack: College basketball media reactions
In the wake of the news, the college basketball media weighed in on the decision, the surprise of how things transpired and more.
Louisville and Chris Mack have announced that they've officially agreed to part ways, per release.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) January 26, 2022
A new era awaits in the 502.
I thought Chris Mack was a slam dunk as Louisville's head coach. What happened?
— Chad Dotson (@dotsonc) January 26, 2022
— Paul Rogers (@paulnrogers1) January 26, 2022
Former Louisville coach Chris Mack rocking a Bengals hat in his first interview following his firing. https://t.co/kMrvMtZDac
— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) January 26, 2022
Heird notes that Chris Mack was a widely applauded hire at the time. He wonders what would’ve happened if Covid hadn’t shortened the 2020 season and Louisville could’ve been a 3-seed and made an NCAA Tournament run.
— Hayes Gardner (@HayesGardner) January 26, 2022
“Are we sitting here today? Probably not.”
For those keeping score, Chris Mack inherited a worse situation than Archie Miller at Indiana, won more games, had less time on the job and a bigger buyout. I wonder when we'll hear the takes about Louisville being impatient, expecting too much and "paying millions to get worse."
— Dylan Sinn (@DylanSinn) January 26, 2022
With a bunch of our writers over at @TheAthleticCBB, we chatted about the Louisville job and Chris Mack. What went wrong, how we got here, etc. I also said this about the Louisville job, which I genuinely believe if they get the hire right: https://t.co/dTZvI2Cmo8 pic.twitter.com/RiZmMxpsCj
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) January 26, 2022
It is, admittedly, a bit shocking to see Mack gone given his reputation when he took the job but there’s also no denying that Louisville basketball has been struggling a bit.
Prior to Mack and the university parting ways, the Cardinals had lost five of their last six games in addition to missing the NCAA Tournament last year.
With that said, Mack’s time at Xavier proves that he is a quality college basketball coach and he should have his pick of jobs this offseason if he wants to dive right back into the grind. As for the Cardinals, we’ll see where they plan to go from here, but likely not until the end of this season as they try to regroup.
For more NCAA basketball news, analysis, opinion and features, check out more from the FanSided college basketball section to stay on top of the latest action.