photo by: AP Photo/John Raoux

Kansas guard Darryn Peterson (22) drives past Central Florida guard Riley Kugel during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Orlando, Fla.

Orlando, Fla. — Darryn Peterson scored 23 points in the first half and Melvin Council Jr. added 20 in the second as Peterson spent the final minutes on the bench, but the 17th-ranked Kansas men’s basketball team’s comeback attempt fell short in an 81-75 loss at UCF on Saturday afternoon.

“It was just a poor, poor defensive effort,” KU coach Bill Self said. “We’ve guarded a lot better than that of late, but that was a poor performance today. Granted, they got some guys that can go get their own.”

Former KU transfer-portal commitment Riley Kugel scored 19 and Themus Fulks added 16 more for the Knights. Jordan Burks posted 14 points, including a key late-clock corner 3-pointer with 42 seconds remaining.

Peterson led all scorers with 26 points and added six rebounds, but after a 36-second shift on the court midway through the second half, he went to the bench and did not return. He had of course been dealing with cramping in his quadriceps muscle over the course of December and missed the prior two games.

Self said postgame that he had wanted to have Peterson on a minutes restriction in the first half, but Council’s early fouls and a knee injury to Elmarko Jackson didn’t allow him to curtail his star guard that much. Peterson played 18 minutes before the break.

“And the second half I thought he started out fine and then it started bothering him, obviously,” Self said. “But the thing about it is we knew, we expected something like that to happen. But we were hoping that it would be a situation in which I could control it a little bit better by minimizing his minutes in the first half.”

He did add of Peterson’s performance, “I thought he did great. He was definitely, there for a stretch in the first half, a different Darryn than what we’ve seen even in the last couple of weeks … The reason why he hadn’t played (was) because he hasn’t been that explosive. He’s a little rusty, but I thought he actually looked pretty darn good.”

Tre White had a 14-point, 11-rebound double-double. On a tough day for the KU frontcourt in general, Flory Bidunga battled foul trouble and finished with eight points and nine rebounds.

It was actually a relatively sluggish opening few minutes for the returning Peterson, who opened 0-for-3 with a turnover, but he got on the board with a transition 3 after Council grabbed an ill-advised UCF pass and Peterson trailed him on the break.

That put the Jayhawks ahead 10-7. Council’s second foul at the 16-minute mark slowed KU down and put more pressure on Peterson as the primary ball handler, but he responded with aplomb, scoring eight additional points in the span of a minute and 12 seconds. UCF countered with a wide-open corner 3 by Burks and a second-chance three-point play by Jamichael Stillwell.

Leading 21-17 out of a timeout, KU opted for a rare single possession of zone defense, and the Knights immediately punished it with a straight-on 3 by Chris Johnson. UCF squandered several opportunities to take the lead, but Kugel pulled up for a jumper, drove in for a layup to take the lead and then hit a 3 after Peterson stepped out of bounds. That put the Knights ahead 27-23 and forced a timeout by Self.

The Jayhawks’ issues intensified down the stretch in the first half, and Bidunga also incurred his second foul. UCF stretched its lead to seven points for the first time on a 3-pointer by Stillwell with four minutes to go.

Jamari McDowell picked out Peterson in the corner for another 3, and Jackson scored through a foul but couldn’t convert a free throw that would have tied the game.

The Knights ended up entering the break ahead 44-41 after Fulks connected on a pull-up jumper at the low block with four seconds to go.

“He made a couple of huge pull-up jumpers over bigs whenever we had the switches,” Self said. “I think he’s a really good player. He’s a handful.”

Peterson was responsible for 23 of KU’s 41 in his 18 minutes, but no one else on the team had more than seven (White) as both Council and Bidunga sat out lengthy stretches due to their fouls. Kugel had 12 and Fulks 11 for UCF in the first half.

After a quiet start to the game, Council came alive early in the second half with nine quick points to help KU cut its deficit to 54-53. He then tied the game at 56 with a 3-pointer with 13 minutes to go.

Peterson returned from a stint on the bench and quickly put the Jayhawks ahead with his first bucket of the second half, but committed a foul against Devan Cambridge and then immediately subbed out. White said afterward that the Jayhawks didn’t know whether he was going to return after that. In any case, the Knights scored seven straight points, capped off by another corner 3 for Burks.

The game slowed to a crawl for minutes at a time with UCF ahead 66-61 and both teams playing zone defense. The Knights’ defense ultimately won out, as the Jayhawks went scoreless for four and a half minutes before a 1-for-2 trip to the free-throw line by Bidunga.

“I feel like it was more self-inflicted wounds,” White said. “Not taking advantages of the gaps they did give us. They switch a lot, so they do give a lot of gaps, and I feel like we kind of got a little lackadaisical, but it wasn’t on them, it was on us for sure.”

KU got a bit closer with some additional free throws and a steal by Kohl Rosario that led to a transition layup by White. Council tied the game on a scoop shot with three minutes remaining, then again with just over a minute left after a fadeaway by Kugel.

After Burks’ deadly corner 3, White missed on his own attempt to tie. But Fulks made just one free throw, and White drew a foul on a 3-point attempt and promptly sank all three to make it 76-75 in UCF’s favor with 16.2 remaining.

The Jayhawks had a chance at that point, but Council fouled Kugel on a drive to the rim, which resulted in a three-point play that effectively sealed the result. After the game, Council called it a “dumb mistake.”

The Jayhawks (10-4, 0-1 Big 12) will return home to face TCU at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

“(We learned) that it’s a lot of time left, and that you can fight to the end, and don’t look back, don’t look at the score or nothing like that,” Council said.

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