Kansas guard Elmarko Jackson (13) celebrates a steal on the inbound late in overtime to give the ball back to the Jayhawks on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks defeated the Horned Frogs, 104-100. Photo by Nick Krug

Darryn Peterson scored a season-high 32 points and hit three free throws to force overtime on Tuesday night, Melvin Council Jr. carried the Jayhawks through the extra period, Tre White poured in a workmanlike 26 points, Jamari McDowell hit one of the biggest shots of the game when KU trailed TCU by nine points with just over a minute remaining and a previously quiet Flory Bidunga grabbed some pivotal offensive rebounds on critical possessions.

Head coach Bill Self’s pick for player of the game, however, was none of the above.

“No chance we win that game without Elmarko Jackson,” he said on postgame radio.

At first blush the redshirt sophomore guard Jackson’s stats from the 104-100 overtime win at Allen Fieldhouse look pedestrian, except perhaps for numerologists: Two points, two rebounds, two assists, two turnovers. But he did manage to notch a big-time five in one column: steals.

And among those steals, none was bigger than the one with 25.2 seconds left in overtime. Well after their initial collapse in regulation, the Horned Frogs had launched a barrage of 3-pointers and benefited from a missed free throw by Council, to the point that they actually had the ball with the shot clock turned off and a chance at a game-tying shot; they were down just 100-97.

As TCU’s Jayden Pierre looked to inbound the ball, Jackson was facing away from him, attempting to deny a pass to point guard Brock Harding. Pierre fumbled the ball into play awkwardly with one hand, and Jackson was able to snag it and dish it off to Council, who made additional free throws. The Frogs never got a good chance at tying the game again.

“Elmarko has the potential to be a really good defensive guard, and he doesn’t do it consistently,” Self said postgame. “But he did that.”

Jackson stepped in passing lanes and picked Frogs’ pockets at other points in the game, too, accounting for the aforementioned five steals when the rest of his team had three combined — on a roster that has consistently been one of the worst in the country at forcing opposing teams’ turnovers.

“Just playing hard, playing tough and doing whatever the team needs me to do,” Jackson said on the radio broadcast of his approach. “Some nights that might be assist the ball a lot, get steals, get rebounds, score, but whatever the team needs me to do to win, I’ll do whatever.”

His best play, or at least the one that impressed his coach to the greatest extent, might have been on offense in the backcourt. It occurred moments before Council’s 1-for-2 trip to the line that necessitated the inbounds steal.

KU was up just two with half a minute to go and McDowell running the baseline. Jackson fielded the pass from his classmate in an awkward location by the TCU bench and got trapped by Harding and Tanner Toolson. But he was able to pivot between the two, then step back out in the opposite direction to fling a pass back to McDowell, who eventually cleared the time line by going to Council.

“Earlier in the game, Samis (Calderon) kind of gets trapped under the basket and gives them the ball for a layup,” Self said on the radio. “Elmarko — strength has a lot to do with that — but Marko stepped through it. It’s the last place you want to catch it, but that’s where we decided to catch it, but he made the play after that.”

The whole enterprise had looked dire about nine minutes of game time earlier when KU was down 15 points, and for much of the game prior to that, in fact. Jackson suggested that KU might have had some “bad energy” persist from its loss at UCF over the previous weekend.

But, as he said, “just the way that our team is set up, you can see it in the teams in the past, we’re never out (of) the game. We know whatever time, moment of the game, we can always find a way to scratch and claw back.”

And in part because of the plays that Jackson made, KU completed its comeback.

“It’s just being focused, being ready to execute whatever’s put in front of us as a team,” he said. “I feel like this is just a great jelling moment for us to lock in with stuff that’s being shown to us and executing our game plan. I feel like it’s just great momentum for us leading into the rest of Big 12 play.”

He said it could be a key “turning point” as well after KU lost that UCF game, one it felt it should have won. Self made similar remarks when he said he felt Tuesday could have been the night the Jayhawks became a team.

They now have another winnable game on the road ahead on Saturday at West Virginia.

Kansas head coach Bill Self grabs Kansas guard Elmarko Jackson (13) to pull him in for a hug following the Jayhawks’ 104-100 overtime win against TCU on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug