Kansas Jayhawks forward Flory Bidunga (40) turns for a bucket over Princeton Tigers forward Jacob Huggins (12) during the first half on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

The Princeton Tigers got close and couldn’t quite get over the hump.

Even after shooting 9-for-28 in the first half, they still found themselves in the thick of a game against Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday, facing just an eight-point halftime deficit. They got as close as one point away in the second half, but conceded a critical 17-3 run and saw their upset hopes evaporate.

Again playing without Darryn Peterson, the Jayhawks weathered a turnover- and foul-laden performance thanks to Flory Bidunga’s above-the-rim success (career-high 25 points on 10-for-11 shooting, 10 rebounds, three blocks) and Tre White’s steady presence (18 points, eight boards), and claimed an anxious 76-57 win over the Tigers.

“Our ball and body movement was very poor,” KU coach Bill Self said. “When you don’t move the ball and you don’t help each other and kind of stand around and then end up not shooting the ball great, it doesn’t look great offensively. I don’t think we really got, even with Flory and Tre, I think collectively as a group — I still think individually they were pretty good and their numbers were good, but I don’t think we meshed very well together as a fivesome at all today.”

Dalen Davis led Princeton with 21 points, but he got them on 6-for-20 shooting. As a team, the Tigers converted only 18 of 58 attempts.

With Peterson missing his second straight game due to a tight hamstring, Self made a change to the starting lineup, opting for a bigger group that subbed in forward Bryson Tiller for guard Elmarko Jackson.

“I don’t think that was a hard decision at all,” Self said. “Plus we don’t rebound the ball like we should, so maybe try playing our biggest guys to see if we become a better rebounding team.”

Both teams started slowly on offense, and Self called a timeout after less than three minutes with the score tied 3-3 to replace Tiller with Jayden Dawson. The Tigers had attempted six 3s by the under-16 timeout and made a pair to claim a 6-5 lead.

“When a game plan is to deny back cuts and they didn’t throw it to them but we were beat on the first possession twice, and then they got up six 3s, if I’m not mistaken, in the first four minutes and 30 seconds of a half — that’s how you start a game,” Self said. “Switching up and doing all that stuff, I think that that was poor. That set the tone. I was pissed from the beginning.”

Princeton added a third 3-pointer soon afterward as KU switched to what was essentially a five-guard lineup with Samis Calderon at center. The Tigers maintained a four-point margin as Self continued to cycle through players looking for answers, including an early appearance for walk-on Wilder Evers. Dawson’s three-point play in transition with 12 minutes left in the first half brought the Jayhawks briefly within a point at a time when they were getting nothing on offense, but Princeton reasserted its advantage in short order and Evers’ stint on the court ended after he stepped out of bounds.

With just under nine minutes to go in the half, Bidunga swiped the ball from CJ Happy for a transition dunk, and then Melvin Council Jr. — who had been struggling on offense — sprinted to retrieve a second pass thrown away by Happy for another dunk. That made it 18-18 and forced Princeton to expend a timeout.

With its initial lineup back on the floor and the game tied, KU essentially got a second attempt at starting the game over again. The Jayhawks locked down Princeton for a while, but only managed to score four points before Jack Stanton rattled in a 3-pointer.

Bidunga took matters into his own hands again, attacking the basket for a pair of elegant layups before Nginyu Ngala — another unexpected first-half insertion — made two free throws.

A pair of ugly plays by Dawson, allowing a backdoor cut for a layup and then fouling Davis on a 3-point attempt, prevented the Jayhawks from building much of an advantage. But Bidunga came through again, finishing a lob from Dawson, dunking over a Tiger defender and later spinning around another for a three-point play to make it 37-29 late in the half.

“I feel like sometimes, the way they guarded me, I was just trying to take what they (were) giving to me,” Bidunga said. “One possession, they gave me the baseline, so I took this path, and then next one, the middle was open. So again, I was just trying to work — as I said again last time — work on my athletic abilities, and then everything fell out pretty good.”

Davis had experienced a lot of success with close-range turnaround fadeaways in the first half, but he missed one the Tigers badly needed in the final seconds, and the Jayhawks maintained their eight-point margin entering the break, largely on the strength of 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting from Bidunga.

“That’s not even the half of what we see (in practice),” White said. “I tell Flo all the time, whenever he flips that switch mentally, I feel like he’s the best big in our conference, in the nation too, so tonight was just a little glimpse of that for sure.”

Princeton cut into the deficit a bit with a four-point play by Stanton through a foul by Kohl Rosario. Then Stanton turned it into a solo 7-0 run when Rosario turned the ball over and he connected on another 3.

KU saw its lead reduced to two points on multiple occasions, and then to one point with 14:21 to go on a 3-pointer by Davis. Tiller was able to respond with a 3 of his own after a timeout, and the Jayhawks restored some comfort with a series of free throws to make it 50-43. Then, after an ugly miss by Davis at the rim, Dawson stepped up and connected from deep to match KU’s biggest lead with 12:38 remaining.

Jackson Hicke brought KU’s run to an end after 11 straight points with a side-stepping 3, but White was able to respond with a putback.

“I just try to (hang) my hat on playing hard, doing the little things to help us win,” White said. “I feel like I’m a mismatch sometimes. If I got a little guy on me, I try to use my strength. If I got a big guy, I’m going to try to use my speed. I feel like tonight, we did a good job of everybody playing downhill.”

“I feel like he was the most energetic guy,” Bidunga added of White. “He got us up. I even talked to him when I was out, I was like, ‘Come on Tre, pick us up.'”

Princeton essentially shot itself out of the game as the second half passed its midway point. Bidunga crossed the 20-point mark with a pair of free throws that made it 65-49 inside of nine minutes to go.

KU endured a scoreless stretch of more than four minutes late that resulted in a more favorable final margin for the Tigers.

The Jayhawks, now 3-1, will travel to face No. 4 Duke (4-0) in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York at 8 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday.

“We’ll get fired up,” Self said. “I’m not in the best of spirits right at this moment.”

Peterson’s status for that game is uncertain.

“He wants to be out there so bad, but I’m not going to put him out there until he feels well,” Self said. “You can say or think, ‘Well, we’re trying to win the battle.’ Well yeah, we are, but the battle’s not as important as the long term, so to speak, and we got to get him where he’s not hesitant to play.”

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