Kansas Jayhawks star guard Darryn Peterson is one of the contenders for the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, but one of the biggest storylines of his freshman year has been a hamstring injury that he’s been dealing with. Peterson’s availability has been limited early in the season, and prior to Kansas’ Big 12 Conference opener against UCF on Saturday, Jayhawks head coach Bill Self spoke about his star freshman’s status, as per The Field of 68.
“Darryn practiced, same as before. But it’s at a little bit of a different level now as far as his explosiveness,” Self said. “Unless something unforeseen happens, we should have our full compliment of guys going into Saturday’s game.”
From what Bill Self said, it appears as if Kansas is expecting Darryn Peterson to return from his injury in time for the start of conference play. After playing in Kansas’ first two games of the season, Peterson had been sidelined for seven straight games due to the hamstring injury. He made his return on Dec.7 and played in two more games before being sidelined again for two games.
Peterson has appeared in four games so far as a freshman, at a little over 26 minutes per game. He had been averaging 19.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.3 assists with splits of 52.8 percent shooting from the field, 42.3 percent shooting from the 3-point line and 76.9 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
Despite Peterson’s limited availability so far, that isn’t expected to affect his draft status at all. Peterson is still seen as the potential No. 1 pick in the draft alongside BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and Duke’s Cameron Boozer as the other contenders.
Coming into Big 12 Conference play, Kansas is 10-3 overall with losses to North Carolina, Duke and UConn.
