photo by: AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

Kansas' Kohl Rosario, right, knocks the ball away from Duke's Isaiah Evans during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in New York.

New York — Kansas coach Bill Self has long been a believer in the power of a multi-team event to bring a group of Jayhawks together.

Last year’s team didn’t quite have that at its disposal, without a traditional Thanksgiving tournament, and when it did get to spend a few days in Utah in league play it didn’t go well. This year’s squad, on the other hand, will get to play three games in the Players Era beginning Monday against Notre Dame, most likely on three straight days.

That experience could go a long way toward helping KU get better in a variety of facets in the wake of Tuesday’s 78-66 loss to Duke at Madison Square Garden — not an altogether discouraging one against a blue-blood program and top-five team, but one that clearly revealed “some things that we got to do to tighten up to become a good team,” as Self put it.

“We need to grow together as a team,” Self added. “Sometimes those tournaments, I actually think, can be the best thing for a team throughout a year, because we get away, it’s only us, three days in a row. I always thought Maui was great for team building, and hopefully this’ll be the same going out to Vegas as well.”

The question remains, of course, which version of the Jayhawks will make it to Vegas: the one including or lacking the potential No. 1 NBA Draft pick, Darryn Peterson, who traveled to New York for Tuesday’s game but did not play. Peterson’s status for the Players Era will be determined after his hamstring strain is reevaluated on Friday (which prompts the question of whether that timetable would even afford him enough practice time to get reincorporated in time for Monday). In any case, the remaining seven to nine Jayhawks that constitute KU’s core rotation have plenty to work on with or without Peterson.

Self has previously said he wants forward Flory Bidunga to become KU’s second option on offense. Tuesday night’s game against Duke, in which he looked far more composed and comfortable with the ball in his hands under the basket, was the first time he really demonstrated his ability to serve as such against a high-level opponent (after he put up 25 points and 10 rebounds against mid-major Princeton on Saturday).

“The thing about Flo is to me, is he can play really well and not score because he’s so active, he can change the game with activity,” Self said. “But I think his offensive game has gotten better, and I thought he played big tonight and he played athletic.”

Bidunga was, of course, limited to 29 minutes by first-half foul trouble — though he did his best to manage playing with four fouls in the second half, when he stayed on the court in jeopardy of fouling out for the final 7:28. His fellow Jayhawks, though, have work to do in maximizing his opportunities.

“I still think that there’s some things … that he can do to simplify some stuff to make him a more effective player, but our guards have to do a better job of looking for him, and we didn’t throw the ball to him,” Self said. “We missed him several times tonight.”

Also, the Jayhawks have come out with strong defensive intensity on a number of occasions in the first half, but haven’t always been able to sustain it in second halves. That has been greatly apparent in their two losses to North Carolina, which scored twice as many points after the break as it did beforehand, and Duke, which invariably had a response nearly every time the Jayhawks threw a punch in the second half on Tuesday.

When Melvin Council Jr. cut the Blue Devils’ lead to five on three occasions in the second half in rapid succession, KU conceded a bucket within 32 seconds each time. When Kohl Rosario rammed home a putback dunk, Duke got a second-chance bucket of its own on the next possession.

Even more critical were a pair of quick baskets by Cameron Boozer when KU got the closest it did all second half: four points away on Tre White’s drive with 5:33 to go and three points away on Council’s 3-pointer with five minutes left. Council even deflected Boozer’s first attempt, but the forward snagged the ball and put it back in.

“The bottom line is when you got to get stops and you got to execute, we didn’t really do that, I don’t think, as well as we could have the last four to five minutes at all,” Self said.

KU, meanwhile, didn’t make a field goal for the remainder of the game after Council’s long-range connection.

If the Jayhawks can improve on what they’ve displayed so far this year during their upcoming time in Vegas — against Notre Dame, Syracuse and a third opponent that might be better than both the Irish and the Orange — they’ll be in better position when they return to Lawrence for the second month of their season, perhaps with Peterson on board.

“If we can do that we’ll be a much better team whenever we have all hands on deck,” Self said.