Flory Bidunga posted 16 points in his Louisville debut to lead the 11th-ranked Cardinals to an 84-70 win over visiting Chattanooga in the season opener for both teams Monday night.
Bidunga, the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year last season at Kansas, made 6 of 9 shots and added nine rebounds as well as three steals. He was one of five Cardinals to finish in double figures, with Adrian Wooley scoring 15 points, Seth Trimble and Jackson Shelstad chipping in 13 apiece, and Alvaro Folgueiras adding 10.
Karter Knox was a point shy of a double-double for Louisville, finishing with nine points and a game-high 11 rebounds.
Yonatan Levy and Zach Bleshoy led Chattanooga’s effort with 14 points each, and Lenny Anigbata put up 12. Bleshoy also had a team-high seven rebounds for the Mocs, who were narrowly outshot 44.1% to 43.9% from the floor.
The Cardinals comfortably won despite struggling from 3-point range (25.7%) and the free-throw line (57.7%). They made up for that by relying on their size to finish with a 42-26 edge in paint points and by forcing 18 Chattanooga turnovers that they converted into 20 points. Louisville finished with 12 steals, four of which came from Wooley.
Louisville jumped on the Mocs early, leading 8-2 just over two minutes in behind a pair of Shelstad threes. The lead reached double digits — where it remained for the rest of the game — 3:21 in on Bidunga’s dunk that made it 15-5.
The Cardinals went on a 10-0 run to open up a 37-14 lead with 9:43 left in the half, and they coasted to a 56-35 halftime edge.
Louisville didn’t carry that success into the second half, where it was outscored 35-28, shot 29% from the floor and made just 1 of 16 3-point tries.
Chattanooga went on a 15-6 run down the stretch to trim the deficit to 15 points with 3:47 left, and the Mocs’ Yssam Moungalla hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut it to the final 14-point margin of defeat.