Kansas and Louisville will finish their exhibition home-and-home on Oct. 21 at Allen Fieldhouse, and the return of Flory Bidunga is set to make the night even louder.
Bidunga, the former Kansas center who left Bill Self and the Jayhawks through the transfer portal for a reported $5 million NIL deal at Louisville, is expected back in Lawrence in front of a hostile crowd. He spent two seasons with KU, appearing in 69 games and making 40 starts while averaging 9.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.1 blocks.
The matchup comes after last year’s meeting in Louisville, when the teams played in front of more than 15,000 fans at the KFC Yum! Center and Kansas won by eight points. That game was the first half of the exhibition series the schools arranged last year.
Kansas will get its first scrimmage of the preseason on Oct. 16 against Pittsburg State, the same day the men’s team hosts Late Night in the Phog. The university moved the annual celebration after a relatively poor turnout from the fanbase last season.
The first game between the teams also had its own headline moment, with freshman standouts Darryn Peterson and Mikel Brown Jr. drawing plenty of attention. Peterson clearly got the better of Brown, but the night also marked the first time Kansas fans saw Peterson’s cramping issues, after he spent much of the second half on the bench following what initially looked like a mysterious injury.
Now the spotlight shifts back to Lawrence, where Bidunga’s homecoming should bring a very different kind of energy.
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