Kansas guard Darryn Peterson (22) gives a look to the California Baptist student section after a three during the second half on Friday, March 20, 2026 at Viejas Arena in San Diego. Photo by Nick Krug

Kansas guard Darryn Peterson announced on social media on Friday morning that he has declared for the 2026 NBA Draft.

Long viewed as a surefire one-and-done as he came to Lawrence as the top prospect in his high school recruiting class, Peterson made his declaration on the final day before the deadline to enter the draft. In the process, he offered a “heartfelt thank you” to his teammates and everyone else at KU.

“After much reflection and prayer, I am proud to announce my decision to declare for the NBA Draft,” he wrote in part. “This has been my lifelong dream, and I am excited for the future. Rock Chalk Forever!”

Peterson’s departure brings to an end a highly scrutinized, up-and-down year in college for the player head coach Bill Self once called the most talented he has ever recruited.

Over the course of his lone season in Lawrence, the 6-foot-6 guard from Canton, Ohio, a preternaturally gifted scorer, averaged 20.2 points per game and 4.2 rebounds. But he also battled injuries, including most notably a recurring cramping issue that caused him to miss several games and also abruptly depart midway through a handful of others.

After his final in-game cramping episode on Feb. 18 at Oklahoma State — a game in which he scored 23 points in 18 minutes, which was not at all atypical for his first-half production — Peterson played in full each of KU’s final nine games of the season. But that coincided with a downturn in production for many of his teammates who had elevated their levels of play in his absence for much of the year, and the Jayhawks ended up losing in the second round to St. John’s despite 21 points from Peterson on that night in San Diego.

Despite the injury drama that was beyond his control, Peterson engineered a number of memorable moments over the course of his year as a Jayhawk.

He scored a career-best 32 in KU’s comeback win at Allen Fieldhouse against TCU on Jan. 6, including three free throws to tie the game after he came off the bench and drew a foul on a 3-point attempt as time was running out. He dominated to a remarkable degree in first halves against Baylor and BYU later in January, in the latter case on a national stage against longtime rival (and fellow future top-three draft pick) AJ Dybantsa. Perhaps most memorably, he knocked down consecutive 3s to tie and win the game for KU on the road at Texas Tech on Feb. 2.

Those moments all came during the peak of the Jayhawks’ season, an eight-game winning streak that put them in the conference race before they slumped late.

Peterson will now prepare for the NBA Draft, which begins on June 23 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Most mock drafts project him in the top three, including some still as high as No. 1. Whatever happens, he is likely to be the highest-drafted Jayhawk since Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid went Nos. 1 and 3 in 2014.