Kansas guard Trent Perry (23) tries to pressure Duke forward Dame Sarr (7) late in the second half on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Nick Krug/Special to the Journal-World

The Kansas men’s basketball team couldn’t deliver freshman wing Trent Perry an exhibition win over Duke for his birthday on Sunday, but it did give him some sort of gift: 14 minutes of game time in which to prove his worth.

During that playing time, which encompassed some of KU’s most successful stretches against the BLue Devils, Perry demonstrated the sorts of qualities that prompted KU coach Bill Self to label him a “winner” when he signed with the Jayhawks last November.

“He brought energy and he’s a good cutter and he’s a ball mover and he knows he doesn’t have to shoot it to impact the game,” Self said.

The freshman from Frisco, Texas, out of Link Academy, had only played one minute without recording a stat in Wednesday’s exhibition against Louisville. But the combination of an injury to Kohl Rosario in Friday’s practice — he took an elbow to the mouth and suffered a concussion — and early foul trouble for veteran Tre White meant that Perry entered with 8:29 to go in the first half against Duke.

Perry remained on the floor for all but six seconds of the half. In that time, he assisted on one key layup by Taylen Kinney and cashed in on a reverse layup of his own to give KU a lead. Throughout the game, Perry also demonstrated his primary source of value as a defender, even in some cases against Duke’s 7-foot-2 freshman center Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje. (Perry is 6-foot-5 but boasts a 7-foot-2 wingspan himself.)

By the end of the game he had a modest four points, two rebounds and three fouls with an assist and a steal. But he also sported by far the best plus-minus of any Jayhawk at plus-11.

“We’ll learn how to play better with different guys in the game, but he’s not a perimeter shooter, so he’s got to be a screener and an offensive rebounder, and he’s figuring it out,” Self said. “I thought he did really well.”

Stokes, who at one point while posting up Duke guard John Blackwell dished the ball to a cutting Perry for an inside bucket, also dished out some compliments when the game was over.

“First of all, happy birthday to Trent,” Stokes said. “He came in, gave great efforts, played his heart out. He did a lot on the transition end, playing defense … He knows what to do when he comes in a game. He may not score 15, 10, eight points, but you’re going to know that he affected the game in a way on defense. Just him running the floor real hard, setting real screens, I feel like he had a pretty good game.”

Perry faces some stiff competition for minutes this season. Even if Self deploys 10 players this year like he says he wants to — which will require a deeper rotation than his usual — Perry is going to have to prove his worth over the likes of Rosario, who has an additional year of experience, and Barnett, who could be the team’s best overall shooter. And White won’t be playing as few as 24 minutes in most games.

But Self gave Perry a key endorsement on Sunday: “I see his minutes to continue to go up as he gets a little older,” he said.