{"id":614850,"date":"2026-02-21T01:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614850\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:33:12","slug":"kansas-coach-bill-self-offers-nuanced-opinion-on-star-darryn-peterson-not-finishing-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614850\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas coach Bill Self offers nuanced opinion on star Darryn Peterson not finishing games"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAWRENCE, Kansas — The noise around Darryn Peterson<\/a>‘s availability — or lack thereof — has swelled by the day. It overflowed this week after Peterson’s cramping reared its ugly head again in Wednesday’s 81-69 win over Oklahoma State<\/a>. Peterson splashed a triple right in front of Kansas<\/a>‘ bench, appeared to signal to head coach Bill Self that he needed to be pulled from the game, and the aftermath of takes that followed were impossible to miss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are some of the outtakes:<\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith: “There is no team in hell that should grab Darryn Peterson at No. 1.”Kendrick Perkins: “If you love the game of basketball, you’re not pulling these kinds of stunts.”Jay Williams: “His talent is unquestionable. It’s elite. But I don’t feel like he really wants to be there.”<\/p>\n

No. 8 Kansas is set to play Cincinnati<\/a> in less than 24 hours. The Jayhawks are just a game behind Arizona<\/a> and Houston<\/a> in the top-heavy Big 12. Winning this game is vital to KU’s title hopes, but Self admitted the noise about the freshman sensation has been hard to blot out fully.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s not a distraction for me as much as it is for him,” Self said. “He hasn’t finished games. The reasons why they say he hasn’t finished games is 100% false. At least in 70 to 80% of the reasons why, that I’ve heard. So I can’t say 100% of everything would be false, but that’s the narrative that’s being put out there. The basis of what’s being said, you can’t argue with. He hasn’t finished games consistently. The reasons why he hasn’t finished, he’s saving himself for the NBA<\/a>, or load management or that kind of stuff, that, to me, couldn’t be more false.”<\/p>\n

Peterson has missed 11 games due to a laundry list of injuries. A balky hamstring, a nasty sprained ankle and an illness have been the culprits, with untimely cramps sending the potential No. 1 pick to the bench for good numerous times this season.<\/p>\n

“The bottom line is, there is a way to change the narrative,” Self said. “Play. Finish. Now, if his body allows him to, fantastic. If it doesn’t allow him to, they’ll say something again the next game. That’s the way to get people to quit talking. It’s not me saying it’s not fair. I don’t think that really keeps anybody from having an opinion on it at a national level, or on this level, or any level, to be quite candid.”<\/p>\n

But Self pushed back hard on the claims that Peterson is not obsessed with basketball.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know that we’ve had a guy who studies the game, has prepared himself for this more so than what Darryn Peterson has,” Self said. “He loves ball. He can’t get enough ball. I think that those are the things that are probably hurtful as much as anything. So say those types of things. And nobody’s putting more time in outside of practice, working on their game on an individual level, than probably what he has over a lifetime. I don’t think it’d be close. So I don’t buy those scenarios at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peterson is expected to play in Saturday’s clash against the Bearcats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will he be able to finish the game? That’s the million-dollar question.<\/p>\n

“If he wasn’t a top pick in an NBA draft, regardless of where that is, would anybody even be talking about this in the way they are?” Self said. “Maybe they would, but I certainly doubt it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAWRENCE, Kansas — The noise around Darryn Peterson‘s availability — or lack thereof — has swelled by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[25086,58504,7,217,17641,64821,26225,3730,1400],"class_list":{"0":"post-614850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-2026-nba-draft","9":"tag-2026-nba-draft-prospects","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-college-basketball","12":"tag-darryn-peterson","13":"tag-darryn-peterson-nba-draft","14":"tag-kansas-basketball","15":"tag-kansas-jayhawks","16":"tag-ncaa-tournament"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614850","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=614850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}