photo by: AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Kansas guard Tre White is introduced before the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Colorado Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Boulder, Colo.

The Kansas men’s basketball team did well to recover from a 1-2 start to league play with four straight wins, including two on the road, entering its midweek open date.

Now, at least in some sense, the real work begins.

“Everybody’s going to go through a hard phase of their schedule,” KU coach Bill Self said on Thursday. “There’s no doubt about that. But this is certainly the toughest phase of ours.”

In the span of two weeks, the Jayhawks will play five games, four of which are against teams ranked in the top 15 right now, with a pair of Saturday-Monday turnarounds along the way.

“We just need to embrace it,” sophomore forward Flory Bidunga said.

It all begins with what could be the most highly scrutinized of any of those matchups: No. 14 Kansas vs. No. 13 BYU, Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse, host to ESPN’s “College GameDay,” in one of KU’s most anticipated home games of the season.

“I know the place is going to be really packed full, a lot of energy, and it’s exciting for us,” Bidunga said. “That really just shows how much people here really love basketball.”

A big part of the hype is the presence of one contender for the top spot in the 2026 NBA Draft on either side of the matchup — Darryn Peterson for KU, AJ Dybantsa for BYU. (Yes, Self anticipates Peterson being able to return after a sprained ankle kept him out of the Jayhawks’ win in Manhattan last Saturday.)

But it bears repeating that there will be eight other players on the court at any given moment.

“We’ve made that point many times in the past, but we sure will do that,” Self said. “And I mean, I’m sure they would say the same thing about us too. The objective of the day is to try to win the game, and that’s the only thing I’m thinking about, and that’s all the players should be thinking about as well.”

The Cougars come to Lawrence after a roller-coaster matchup with No. 1 Arizona on Monday in which they trailed by as many as 19 points with 10:53 to go and were still down 13 with under four minutes remaining but somehow found themselves in a position to take the lead late. Arizona conceded offensive rebounds, missed free throws and committed turnovers and fouls to such an extent that BYU got the ball back down just 84-83 with 12 seconds remaining — only for Brayden Burries to block Robert Wright III from behind on a contested shot inside and make two free throws to seal the win for the Wildcats.

That was one of just three losses this season for the Cougars, who guided by the trio of Dybantsa (23.6 points, 6.7 rebounds per game), the Baylor transfer point guard Wright (17.4 points, 5.2 assists) and hot-shooting wing Richie Saunders (18.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 39.3% 3-point shooting on 135 percent) have compiled a 17-3 record.

“We got to guard their team, but our emphasis will be on trying to slow down those three — knowing that there’s another guy in the starting lineup that made five 3s in a half recently,” Self said, referencing Kennard Davis Jr., who had been 0-for-12 from deep in his previous three appearances.

He continued: “And then they got a very athletic big guy in the middle (Keba Keita) that has certainly given us fits in the past, primarily last year. We’re going to do what we need to do to win the game, but the emphasis cannot be stopping one guy. We got to figure out a way to slow down and keep BYU out of rhythm as a group, not just one person.”

Saunders and Wright fire away from downtown, but the Cougars aren’t an exceptionally efficient 3-point shooting team at 35.6%. They just get up more attempts than most of the league, with 506 on the season.

In any event, not many teams have figured out how to stop them. BYU lost by two to UConn in Boston on Nov. 15 and did not drop another game until it allowed a 30-6 second-half run to Texas Tech at United Supermarkets Arena on Jan. 17.

Saturday’s matchup will, in fact, be just the fourth true road game for the Cougars this year, and they didn’t exactly blow out Kansas State in Manhattan (83-73 on Jan. 3) or Utah in Salt Lake City (89-84 on Jan. 10). This will be one of their biggest challenges away from the Marriott Center all season, and the winner of Saturday’s game will have a chance to vault itself into the upper echelon of the Big 12 as league play nears its halfway point.

NO. 14 KANSAS JAYHAWKS (15-5, 5-2 BIG 12) vs. NO. 13 BYU COUGARS (17-3, 5-2 BIG 12)

• Allen Fieldhouse, Lawrence, 3:30 p.m.

• Broadcast: ESPN

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KKSW FM 105.9 / KMXN FM 92.9)

KEEP AN EYE OUT

Enigma: Self said this week he doesn’t know what he really has in his team at this stage of the season — more specifically, “I think I know what 80% of it is, just how the other 20% fits in with the other four guys, don’t really know that yet.” That is, of course, an apparent reference to the repeated insertion into and removal from the lineup of Peterson, who has battled several injury issues this season, and who will have as much to say as anyone about how far the Jayhawks go this year. Even when he has played, he hasn’t often been at maximum strength — and when he has, he has dazzled, like when he scored 20 points in the first half against Baylor on Jan. 16. What version of him KU will get on Saturday is anyone’s guess, but chances are he’ll find a way to score in bunches regardless.

Nagging issue: It hasn’t come back to haunt KU as much late, as the Jayhawks have embarked on their winning streak, but the Jayhawks continue to concede second-chance opportunities. KU gave up eight offensive rebounds to one Kansas State player — 7-foot-2 center Dorin Buca — most of which came in the opening minutes. The Jayhawks can’t afford any similar lapses against BYU, which has shooters on the perimeter ready to take advantage of an average of 15.1 offensive rebounds per game in league play (which if extrapolated to the whole season would be fourth in the nation). Keita leads the way in that respect, but Saunders and others chip in frequently as well to help the Cougars get extra opportunities.

The latest milestone: KU Athletics is marketing Saturday’s showdown as the 1,000th men’s basketball game played at Allen Fieldhouse. Self acknowledged in his press conference Thursday that he has coached 352 of those games. The novelty never wears off: “Before every tipoff I look to the guy to my right and left, the coaches, I say, ‘Can you believe this?'” he said. “We’re spoiled rotten here. This is the best, when you think about night in and night out, and over the course of decades, not just during my time here.” The 23rd-year head coach is still looking to make some memories in the Phog: Asked about his favorite games there, he said they haven’t been played yet.

OFF-KILTER OBSERVATION

KU has of course crossed paths with Wright before, and it didn’t go particularly well for the Jayhawks. He scored 24 points in Baylor’s comeback victory against KU at Foster Pavilion last season and was the primary catalyst of the Bears’ second-half rally.