Kansas guard Darryn Peterson talks with media members in the team locker room on Saturday, March 21, 2026 at Viejas Arena in San Diego. Photo by Nick Krug

SAN DIEGO — The college career of the player Bill Self called the best he had ever recruited at Kansas ended with a futile half-jump.

Twenty-two feet away from the hoop into which St. John’s point guard Dylan Darling was about to deposit the basketball for a game-winning layup, there stood KU’s freshman star Darryn Peterson, who had drifted out to the right wing to prevent a potential kick-out to Oziyah Sellers.

None came, of course. That meant all he could do was sort of hop, right as teammate Elmarko Jackson, trying to impede Darling down by the basket, leapt much more purposefully to try to stop the inevitable.

Both jumps were equally ineffective and suddenly the ball was through the hoop and the season was over. And so too, in all likelihood, was Peterson’s time at Kansas.

The freshman from Canton, Ohio, said afterward that he would talk to his family and that he wasn’t sure it was truly his last year in college. That’s his right, to be sure. His rival at BYU, AJ Dybantsa, has also made noises about returning to college.

But during a season in which very little went according to plan, Peterson still averaged 20.2 points per game and is still projected to be the No. 1 pick in the draft by ESPN, for example. Could he go No. 2 behind Dybantsa or No. 3 after him and Duke’s Cameron Boozer? Sure, but he’s every bit the NBA prospect he was coming in despite the adversity and inconsistent availability he endured over the course of the year. He’ll most likely be the highest-drafted Jayhawk since Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid went Nos. 1 and 3 in 2014.

But what of his legacy at KU? Peterson graced Naismith Court just nine times. As a final tally, a hamstring injury, cramps, an ankle injury and illness cost him 11 of KU’s 35 games and large chunks of many others, while also hampering him during the moments he actually was playing. Early-season Peterson was more of a perimeter shooter than the preternatural slasher he revealed himself to be later on.

And then strangely, when he returned to full strength, in some sense it seemed like for the Jayhawks, the damage was done. KU’s eight-game winning streak that had Jayhawk fans dreaming of a Big 12 regular-season title and a setting their sights on a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament occurred with Peterson in and out of the lineup. When he started playing full games on a regular basis, many of his teammates faded. It never truly made sense, but rarely did they achieve the same aggression — and general success — they had when forced to operate without him. Between the start of Peterson’s stretch of nine straight full games on Feb. 21 and the season’s end on March 22, KU was just the No. 54 team nationally in Bart Torvik’s ratings and went 4-5.

Not every Jayhawk gets a storybook ending. In the world of one-and-dones, Wiggins and Embiid certainly didn’t. Wiggins played one of the worst games of his lone year at KU in a second-round loss to Stanford, and Embiid might be one of KU’s greatest what-ifs because he missed the tournament altogether due to injury. Josh Jackson shone on the 2016-17 team that also had National Player of the Year Frank Mason III but lost to Oregon in Kansas City, Missouri.

And even program legends haven’t had it easy: Sherron Collins won a national title, but his very last game was against Northern Iowa. The Morris twins lost to VCU.

In the games he was able to finish, Peterson had a pretty high quantity of heroics per minute, if such a stat existed. Moments before the fateful final four seconds against St. John’s, he had drawn a foul with KU down two and made a pair of free throws to tie the game and complete the Jayhawks’ comeback.

He had done the same thing against TCU on Jan. 6, except he had to battle through pain to do so after he had already exited the game due to cramps — and managed to draw a foul on a 3-pointer. His stunning consecutive 3s in the final moments on the road at Texas Tech will likely go down as the iconic plays of his KU career, along with some highlight-reel dunks, finishes and off-balance shots against the likes of Baylor and BYU, the latter game one of the most anticipated matchups in recent KU basketball history.

Certainly he was by far KU’s best player in the NCAA Tournament, even if he wasn’t particularly efficient from the field. But it was only enough to get the Jayhawks to the second round, not carry them for weeks as Self had suggested he might be able to.

Of course that probably had a lot more to do with the fading performances of players like Tre White, a much improved 3-point shooter on the year who was nevertheless 2-for-15 from deep in the postseason, and Bryson Tiller, who went scoreless for the first time all season in his 27 minutes of action against St. John’s. Even Melvin Council Jr., who experienced a bit of a return to form against the Johnnies, committed a season-high five turnovers. In any case, the sum total of KU’s 2025-26 team was not enough for a deep run, and it was built around Peterson.

When all was said and done on Sunday, Self praised Peterson’s performance against St. John’s and his high level of effort. He also reflected in brief on his guard’s season overall.

“He’s had moments where he’s looked great and moments where obviously his health didn’t allow him to play like we all know he’s capable of playing,” Self said. “But I hope the year was enjoyable for him. I know I enjoyed being around him an awful lot.”

In the locker room not long beforehand, Peterson had hesitated when asked how he might want to be remembered at KU, if indeed Sunday’s game was his last.

“I’m not sure right now,” he said. “Hopefully as a player that will have a place that he can call home in Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas. I don’t know. A player that went out there and played hard every time he could.”

photo by: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

Kansas players react after losing to St. John’s in the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday, March 22, 2026, in San Diego.

Kansas guard Darryn Peterson (22) floats in for a bucket against BYU during the first half on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug