LAWRENCE, Kansas \u2014 Kansas and Darryn Peterson left no doubt for a half Saturday afternoon against No. 13 BYU inside Allen Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n
No doubt that Peterson, not AJ Dybantsa, should be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n
No doubt that Kansas, at full strength, is a legitimate title contender.<\/p>\n
Then halftime happened.<\/p>\n
The Jayhawks survived, 90-82, and Peterson was amazing in the first half \u2014 18 points on 6-of-7 shooting \u2014 but two minutes and 43 seconds into the second half, Peterson shot a 3 and missed and landed a little funny on his left foot.<\/p>\n
Back on defense, Peterson immediately called for a sub and left the game at the next whistle, never to return. Kansas head coach Bill Self said after the game that Peterson had issues with cramps.<\/p>\n
Bizarrely, the game at Colorado on Jan. 20 where he sprained his left ankle and Self missed because of a health scare, is the only game all season that Peterson has finished.<\/p>\n
When Peterson is out there and his legs feel right and the Jayhawks are in sync with him, which they\u2019ve started to look lately, Kansas looks like a real title contender. They led 53-33 at half against the Cougars, with Peterson outdueling Dybantsa, who scored 10 of his 17 points after halftime.<\/p>\n
But every game, the Jayhawks (16-5, 6-2 Big 12) have to wonder just how much Peterson they\u2019ll get that day.<\/p>\n
Peterson is truly on another level when he gets rolling, and this day might have been his most electric performance yet. He had a steal and free throws that got him started. Then he hit a transition 3 and made a second steal, while guarding Dybantsa, and with his fellow freshman star on, he hit a step-back, mid-range fadeaway that set the tone that this was going to be his day.<\/p>\n
His first half was reminiscent of the day in 2007 when Kevin Durant scored 25 first-half points at Allen Fieldhouse and KU legend Danny Manning said Durant was the baddest man who had ever played in the building.<\/p>\n
Durant also left the game that day with an ankle injury, but he returned and finished with 32 points.<\/p>\n
The Jayhawks have become accustomed to life without Peterson, and they managed to survive BYU\u2019s surge in the second half. The Cougars (17-4, 5-3) have made a habit in big games of falling behind and furiously coming back behind Richie Saunders, who scored 24 of his game-high 33 points in the second half. They cut it to four with 1:27 left on two Rob Wright free throws, but KU answered with an 8-2 run.<\/p>\n
KU was running on fumes at the end, with sixth man Elmarko Jackson also missing the second half. Self played a six-man rotation in the second half, but held on behind a season-high 21 points from freshman Bryson Tiller and with the help of Melvin Council Jr., who made a critical leaner when BYU had cut it to four.<\/p>\n
Next up, Kansas is at Texas Tech on Monday, and everyone will wonder for two days if Peterson will play, and if so, how much?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAWRENCE, Kansas \u2014 Kansas and Darryn Peterson left no doubt for a half Saturday afternoon against No. 13…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,3294,3730,354,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-574111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-byu-cougars","10":"tag-kansas-jayhawks","11":"tag-mens-college-basketball","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115992833938573270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}