photo by: AP Photo/Ben McKeown

Kansas's Darryn Peterson (22) dunks during an NCAA college basketball game in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025.

After Kansas guard Darryn Peterson missed his ninth game of the season on Monday night, KU coach Bill Self said Peterson’s family has decided he should be “as close to 100% as possible” when he returns to action.

Self said he agrees with that decision.

“We’re in agreement with the family that he should not play until he feels good,” he added. “We’re in agreement. But I’m not inside his head or his body that I can determine if he feels good enough or not. That’s up to him. But he wants to be out there, he’s just not quite ready.”

The head coach reiterated that Peterson is doing well at present and that he considers his player to be day-to-day.

It’s a set of similar sentiments to those Self has expressed all season — about wanting Peterson to be 100%, and about how eager the freshman is to return to action — albeit with somewhat different framing.

Peterson has now missed nine of a possible 13 games as he has battled cramps, illness and a hamstring injury that cost him a month between Nov. 7 and Dec. 7.

The star freshman, a projected top pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, has not played since leaving late in the Jayhawks’ win at N.C. State on Dec. 13 as a result of cramping issues with his quadriceps muscle.

In recent days, Self characterized the issue as one creating a disconnect between Peterson’s mind and body, so that “his brain’s telling him to go somewhere and do it at this pace, and his body’s just not reacting to it,” he said on Dec. 16. On Sunday, ahead of KU’s game against Davidson, Self had told reporters Peterson was getting better every day.

In his four appearances this season — two to open the season against Green Bay and North Carolina, then two more after he came back from the hamstring issue to face Missouri and N.C. State — Peterson has averaged 19.3 points and 3.8 rebounds in 26.3 minutes, without even being at full strength in all of his performances. In fact, when Peterson exited in the final minutes of regulation against N.C. State, Self remarked postgame that he was happy Peterson made it that far into the game, because he had encountered issues early in the second half “every other game.”

The result, in any event, is that the Jayhawks have completed their nonconference schedule with minimal involvement, at least within games, from the player around whom their roster is largely constructed. They finished it with a 10-3 record, which both Self and redshirt sophomore guard Jamari McDowell said was more impressive given Peterson’s absence. Self also acknowledged that KU’s losses to Duke and Connecticut — both games in which it suffered stagnant stretches on offense late in the second half — could have gone differently with a full set of players.

Whatever the case, Peterson’s next chance to return to the court will be on Jan. 3 when the Jayhawks take on UCF at Addition Financial Arena. That game will be preceded, for the first time, by player availability reports. Under a new Big 12 policy, an initial availability report the night before a game will label a player as probable, questionable, doubtful or out, and a pregame report 90 minutes before tipoff will indicate whether a player is available, out or a game-time decision.