Kansas guard Tre White (3) gets a high five from Kansas forward Bryson Tiller (15) after connecting on a three right before the halftime buzzer against Missouri on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025 at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. Photo by Nick Krug

Kansas City, Mo. — With four and a half minutes remaining in the first half of Sunday’s Border War at the T-Mobile Center, Missouri’s Mark Mitchell soared over Kansas’ Paul Mbiya for a thunderous dunk that gave the Tigers a 23-21 lead.

Mizzou proceeded to score three points in the next 7:46, on either side of the halftime break.

That provided a window of time for the previously inconsistent KU offense to heat up in the so-called middle eight, and the Jayhawks took advantage. They then withstood the Tigers’ lone charge midway through the second half on their way to an 80-60 rivalry win.

“All week, every day, practice has been more intense, the message has been more clear,” senior forward Tre White said, “and you know, I feel like everybody was more ramped up than a normal game and that’s why it was so scrappy tonight.”

KU guard Darryn Peterson made his return from a hamstring injury after seven games away and scored 17 points on 6-for-14 shooting, but he exited with 11:16 to go and did not return as he received attention from training staff at the end of the Jayhawks’ bench. After the game, KU coach Bill Self said Peterson didn’t have any issues with his hamstring, and that he was more inhibited by an illness than anything else.

“I thought he did fine, but I didn’t plan on playing him 17 1/2 minutes the first half,” Self said. “I wanted to play him about 14. And then when he got however many he got to start the second half, he was gassed. If it had been a close game it may have been different, but I wasn’t going to try to play him over 27 anyway, so I thought, ‘Why even put him back out there?'”

White got to the free throw line at will and led KU with 20 points to go with 13 rebounds. Bryson Tiller added 13 points, largely during a successful stretch early in the second half.

“I just had to change my mentality, had to be more aggressive, more physical,” Tiller said. “Leaned on my teammates to have my back. They motivated me, so just glad we got the win.”

While Mizzou largely contained Flory Bidunga, he still ended up with 10 points and 11 boards.

The Tigers relied incredibly heavily on the Kansas City, Kansas, native Mitchell, who finished with 21 points. Jacob Crews scored 11 with three 3-pointers.

“I thought we actually did a decent job on Mark, with the exception of transition,” Self said. “We just couldn’t get in font of him in transition. I bet he scored eight of his points in transition, and then we fouled him too much. But as far in halfcourt offense, I actually thought we did a decent job on him and Bryson was a big reason why, because that’s who he started out on.”

Peterson opened the scoring with a 3-pointer in his return to action, but neither team found much of a rhythm on offense in the opening minutes. Missouri missed its first four attempts from the field until Anthony Robinson II cut the Tigers’ deficit to 7-5 with a second-chance 3 of his own.

The crowd whose noise primarily had favored KU in the early going soon came to life in Missouri’s favor after back-to-back strong finishes at the rim by Mitchell gave the Tigers their first lead, as the Jayhawks opened 3-for-13 and squandered an early rebounding advantage.

White sustained KU’s stagnant offense with a pair of 3-pointers, but the Jayhawks continued to concede offensive boards — they had given up eight by the under-12 timeout — and it didn’t help that Bidunga committed his second foul after an ineffective start.

Peterson missed an off-balance layup inside that could have tied the game at 20, but hit a 3 not long afterward to put the Jayhawks ahead after Mitchell traveled in the post. However, Missouri added a free throw and then Mitchell got on the board again with his dunk.

The game flow promptly reversed, with Peterson tying the game on a pair of free throws and Bidunga — playing with two fouls — throwing down a dunk to make Mizzou’s Dennis Gates call timeout.

“I kind of feel like they kind of had the upper hand on the physicality at the beginning of the game,” White said, “so we just had to match that, and once we figured that out, that kind of canceled out a lot of open things and opened up the transition game for us, so we just had to take that away from them.”

With just over two minutes to go in the half, Missouri’s Nicholas Randall fouled Bidunga after the sophomore grabbed a rebound. An ensuing encounter resulted in double technical fouls against Robinson and Jamari McDowell — including Robinson’s third foul.

“I didn’t know anything,” Self said. “Mari said he flopped. I said, ‘You touched him’ — which they told me he did touch him. So if you touch him, it’s a technical. And so I don’t know what Missouri did or whatever. To be honest with you, I was not displeased with that call because I thought the best we could get out of it would be offsetting.”

KU had a 30-25 lead when the ball bounced out of bounds with the Jayhawks trying to corral a defensive rebound. The initial ruling that the ball had gone out off KU was reversed when replay revealed that it touched Annor Boateng last.

Peterson, the halftime leader with 12 points, missed a turnaround jumper on the ensuing possession, but the Jayhawks were able to get out and run in the final seconds after Tiller deflected Mitchell’s attempt at the rim. Melvin Council Jr. flung the ball downcourt to White, who pulled up and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to complete a 12-2 run and give KU a 33-25 lead at the break.

“Really, it’s just routine,” White said. “Mel (gets) the rebound, sprint as fast (as) you can. I really wanted to sprint and get the dunk, but Mel threw it perfectly to where I could have just shot it. It was just routine at that point — wasn’t even thinking.”

The Jayhawks looked much more fluid on offense, and White and Tiller were wide open at the right block on separate possessions as KU extended its lead as far as 39-26 before Missouri took a timeout.

That didn’t do much to stem the tide. The Jayhawks went up as many as 18 points on a three-point play by Council, at which point the Tigers finally fought back with back-to-back buckets, but then Peterson hit a catch-and-shoot 3 at the end of the shot clock to make it 47-30.

KU led by 20 on a pair of occasions before Luke Northweather connected on his third of three 3-point attempts in rapid succession. Missouri had some moderate success with a zone defense, and Crews hit two 3s of his own. The Tigers had a couple of opportunities to get their deficit down to 10 but were unable to do so, even though the Jayhawks had some issues at the free-throw line.

McDowell had what looked like a dagger 3 with six minutes to go, but Mitchell responded with a rare long-range connection of his own.

Council threw an alley-oop to Bidunga from beyond the three-point line with 2:29 to go. He also rammed home a dunk of his own with the shot clock turned off in the final moments.

“I didn’t think the dunk was inappropriate because of the speed he was coming at, and they were grabbing him by the shirt at the time trying to slow him down and all that stuff,” Self said. “I think if it hadn’t have been happening so fast, I think that it would be inappropriate … They came down the very next possession, threw a lob trying to dunk it. It wasn’t like there was three seconds left and everybody had quit playing.”

The Jayhawks, who improved to 7-3, will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina, to face N.C. State on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Central Time.

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