Kansas basketball earned a statement win over Houston on Feb. 23, taking down the fourth-ranked Cougars 69-56 at home. They also received another win in terms of star guard Darryn Peterson’s availability, as he has now played in 30 or more minutes in back-to-back games, which has only happened two other times this season.
The projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft scored 14 points in the win on 5-of-14 shooting. He was also made available in the postgame press conference, which hasn’t happened much this season.
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Peterson was asked after the game for his view of the situation regarding his playing time, given he has missed 11 of Kansas’ 28 games this season, including when he subbed himself out early against Oklahoma State on Feb. 18. The former five-star recruit has dealt with cramps from a lingering hamstring injury, and said he’s been blocking out the noise as of late.
“It’s kind of normal this year,” Peterson said of the national attention. “Somebody’s had something to say, probably, after every game this year. So, I don’t really pay attention to it anymore.”
Peterson later added: “I’ve kind of been an anti-social loner my whole life, kind of, so I kind of just deal with it on my own.”
Fellow Kansas guard Tre White, who scored a game-high 23 points in the win over Houston, said after the game he tries to help lift up Peterson, especially amid the heightened interest in the future lottery pick.
“I definitely just try to, whenever I see him, just try to keep him right,” White said. “But he’s been in the spotlight all his life, so he definitely knows how to handle it and we tell him all the time, ‘We’re with you. We’re your brothers. We understand what the outside world thinks, but we don’t care about none of that. What’s inside the locker room.’ That’s pretty much how we do it.”
Peterson has been one of the best players in college basketball this season when healthy, as he’s averaging 19.9 points with 3.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game on 47.2% shooting. He’s also shooting 40.2% from 3-point range on the year.
Kansas has shown it can be competitive without Peterson this season, even beating Arizona at home without its star guard. Still, the Jayhawks’ ceiling is a national championship contender with the true freshman firing on all cylinders.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Darryn Peterson on handling attention after Houston win: ‘Anti-social loner’
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