photo by: Nathan Friedman/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas forward Paul Mbiya and guard Elmarko Jackson look for a rebound during the game against Arizona on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, in Tucson, Ariz.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Some teams could draw two early fouls on Kansas forward Bryson Tiller and not do all that much to improve their chances of winning.

Tiller is a strong and steadily improving player, of course, and the Jayhawks are better with his scoring spark. But for Arizona — one of the most physical teams in the country, with a front line of bruising forwards Ivan Kharchenkov (6-foot-7, 230 pounds) and Koa Peat (6-foot-8, 235 pounds) and center Motiejus Krivas (7-foot-2, 260 pounds) — to get the freshman from Atlanta out of the game early was particularly pivotal.

When Tiller contacted Kharchenkov as he was attempting to drive against Tre White 48 seconds into the game, then inhibited Peat in one-on-one post defense a minute and 16 seconds later for a second foul, it created an immediate and largely unsolvable problem for the Jayhawks in Saturday’s loss at the McKale Center.

“We don’t have the depth,” KU coach Bill Self said. “And then it forced Tre to play the four, and that’s really not what he is. He’s more of a three that can play some four, but much better when the other team plays four guards, and they obviously don’t play that way. Yeah, it impacted us.”

Beginning with Peat’s free throws following the second foul, Arizona scored 19 consecutive points to put KU in a 21-5 hole, and didn’t have to leave the paint all that much to do so. When White came to double-team Peat with Flory Bidunga, Krivas was wide open for a dunk — 6-5. Jamari McDowell came in and Peat sent him skidding to the floor and made a close-range turnaround jumper — 8-5. Another easy dunk for Krivas — 10-5.

And so on.

Of course, KU’s lack of scoring offense had plenty to do with the uncontested nature of the Wildcats’ surge.

“I actually thought we got off to a great start,” Self said. “We got the shots we wanted early, we didn’t make them, and you look up and we’re down eight right off the bat, and then the dam burst, so to speak.”

Self called his first timeout at 10-5. He had to take his second after just an additional 1:12 of game time, because White jumped too aggressively for a pass and left Peat open for another dunk, Melvin Council Jr. missed a 3-pointer and then Brayden Burries drove right past White for a layup.

At that point, Self tried to take another tack. The Jayhawks did in fact have another big body on the bench in the 7-footer Paul Mbiya, a freshman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who had played just 12 minutes in Big 12 action. But he had in fact made a credible appearance prior to halftime in KU’s first game against Arizona, so there was some reason to believe he might be able to do the same on Saturday.

After Mbiya’s unusually early entrance at the 14:53 mark came two more free throws for Peat. When Peterson missed a jumper at the other end, Mbiya was able to force a tie-up with Burries, and even got over on help defense to block Jaden Bradley at the other end. He grabbed an offensive rebound when Elmarko Jackson missed on the baseline, but missed a layup.

Later on, though, he left Burries enough space for a 3-pointer. Peterson turned the ball over, Burries scored on the break and thus concluded the 19-0 run.

“We had foul problems and he’s big,” Self said of Mbiya, who went on to play 10 minutes, his second-highest total of the season. “And I thought Paul did fine. But that’s not his role to go in and score or get numbers or whatever. I just thought he could buy us a little time. And he actually did at our place. But tonight, we were just trying to piece it together.”

Mbiya later gave up a drive to Kharchenkov. Tiller reentered with two fouls at 12:14 and scored on a dunk before picking up his third on an illegal screen at 7:39.

It was that kind of night for the KU big men. Bidunga and Tiller combined to go 2-for-11 with six rebounds. Peterson was the Jayhawks’ leading rebounder with five as Arizona won the battle on the boards 48-26.

“A guy getting in early foul trouble isn’t a 22-rebound difference,” Self said. “I just thought they were so, so aggressive, and I thought that we played really soft, to be real honest with you.”

Bidunga hadn’t necessarily thrived early in his matchup with Krivas back in Lawrence on Feb. 9. But he got the upper hand in the second half of that one and finished with a 23-point, 10-rebound double-double on 8-for-11 shooting.

There was no such second-half resurgence for Bidunga on Saturday. Even when the Jayhawks, having essentially spotted Arizona a 16-point lead, got back within two points with 12:07 to go, it had little to do with post play and everything to do with the improved shot-making of Council and Peterson.

Meanwhile, Krivas had 13 and 10 with a pair of blocks.

“He’s a rim protector,” Self said, “he takes up space, he’s extremely intelligent, he’s strong, physical, long obviously, but today we didn’t get behind him, where at our place we got behind him a few times because we were able to get paint touches off ball screens and things like that. The few times we did, we didn’t take advantage of it.”

It was a bad day in the post for the Jayhawks, a day on which their efforts had been derailed in the opening minutes.