The Kenny Payne era in Louisville could not have gotten off to a worse start.

In the former Knicks assistant’s first game as the Cardinals’ head coach, Louisville was stunned by crosstown program Bellarmine on Wednesday night, 67-66. Bellarmine, in just its third season as a Division I school, took a 12-point lead with 4:41 remaining. Louisville scored the next 11 points but fell short.

“They deserved to win,” Payne said of Bellarmine after the game. “Well-coached team, out-coached us. Players outplayed us.”

Payne, 55, was an assistant coach at Kentucky for a decade before joining the Knicks as an assistant in 2020 for Tom Thibodeau’s first season as Knicks head coach. He left in March for Louisville, his alma mater, after the school fired Chris Mack in January.

Julius Randle said he “cried twice” when he found out Payne was leaving the Knicks because of what he did for the franchise and because “he really looked after me.”

After Wednesday’s loss, Payne harped a lot about his team needing to play hard defensively on every possession. He also knows there will be growing pains for his rebuilding program.

“Understand, this is a hard game. If it was easy, everybody would be winning,” Payne said. “So I am asking them to change, to do things that are uncomfortable for them right now. That’s why I say, ‘we win or we learn.’ Today is a hard lesson to learn, it’s that simple.”

Louisville hosts Wright State on Saturday and Appalachian State on Tuesday before a matchup against No. 10-ranked Arkansas on Nov. 21 at the Maui Invitational.