LAWRENCE, KAN. — Bill Self isn’t the touchy-feely type. So when he bounced around the Allen Fieldhouse court after Kansas upset then-No. 1 Arizona on Feb. 9, embracing his players as if the clock had just struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, it shocked them.

“That’s three hugs in my career,” sophomore Flory Bidunga said after the game. “He’s giving hugs now? We’ve got to cut him off.”

Rare as it is, Self’s celebration matched the moment: The Jayhawks had just handed the 23-0 Wildcats their first loss of the season. And they did it without their biggest star, Darryn Peterson — the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA draft — who was a late scratch because of flu-like symptoms.

It was just the latest chapter in the most unpredictable season of Self’s career. A precautionary hospitalization that cost him the trip to Kansas’ Jan. 20 date at Colorado has been a secondary headline for a team that has dealt with the perpetual question of Peterson’s game-to-game availability. The freshman has sat out 11 of the Jayhawks’ 27 games and has played fewer than 25 minutes in seven of his 16 appearances as a result of hamstring and ankle injuries, including persistent cramping.

The saga took on a new life nine days after the win over Arizona, when Peterson benched himself in the second half last Wednesday in a victory at Oklahoma State, Self’s alma mater. It was Peterson’s shortest outing yet (18 minutes), sparking a cycle of national media criticism, including ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith even discouraging NBA teams from selecting the top prospect No. 1 in the upcoming draft.

“I thought we were past it, but obviously we’re not,” Self told reporters after the game in Stillwater. “It’s certainly a concern. You get into the NCAA tournament, you’re playing a team just as good as you and you need to have all your best players available, so to speak. All it takes is for one day like that to derail not only a game, but a season.”

It’s all out in the open now: Kansas has struggled to establish chemistry and rhythm while riding the will-he-won’t-he roller coaster of Peterson’s availability. That much was evident when the Jayhawks lost to a middling Cincinnati team on their home court Saturday, scoring only 68 points with Peterson playing 32 minutes compared to the 82 they scored without him against Arizona. Now with No. 2 Houston in town on Monday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) — and less than a month until the NCAA tournament — the question becomes how this season has developed into a tale of two teams in Lawrence and what all of this means come March.

It’s complicated, even for Self.

By this point in most seasons, the 23-year Kansas coach is typically secure in his team’s potential. Without his best player on the court consistently this season, though, he’s uncertain. Two national championships and 644 wins with the Jayhawks make him an expert on what it takes to capitalize in the final month of the regular season to prepare for the grind of the NCAA tournament. Yet while he’s confident that this season’s team has the goods to chase a third title under him, he needs Peterson to be ready for the long haul. “The time is now,” Self told ESPN after the win over Arizona.

“He’s great, but I have told [Peterson], in all honesty, ‘Have I really had a chance to coach you yet?'” Self later added. “Have I had a chance to say, ‘Hey, this is totally unacceptable. This is how we’re doing it.’ Have I had a chance to really make points to him?”

TWO DAYS after he sat out his team’s biggest win of the season, Peterson walked into Allen Fieldhouse with his same neutral demeanor.

“On the court, no, I probably don’t smile,” he said. “I think I smile a good amount off the court.”

Jayhawks fans haven’t smiled much this season, either, as Peterson has been bombarded with criticism from fans and pundits alike. And he understands why. He wants to play more and get into a better rhythm with his teammates, acknowledging it has been difficult to achieve so far.

“Everybody’s got an opinion on it,” Peterson told ESPN between the Arizona and Oklahoma State games. “But basketball is my life. If I could have been out there every game this year, I would have. If you would have asked me last year, what were my goals for this year, I would never mention missing games. So all this stuff kind of just happened, but I’ve got to deal with it.”

Things haven’t gone according to plan for Peterson, either. Before the season, he told ESPN he believed he could lift the Jayhawks to another level.

“I think I bring a leader and a hard worker. I lead by example, trying to do all the right stuff both on and off the court,” he said at Big 12 media day in October. “I think that’s good for a team, to see a young guy coming in and doing that. Hopefully, I can try to bring those guys to a standard.”

Fast-forward four months, and Peterson’s 27.2 minutes per game are a stark contrast to his peers at the top of ESPN’s 2026 NBA draft big board, with BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and Duke’s Cameron Boozer each averaging north of 30. Boozer has played 34 or more minutes in 15 games — a mark that Peterson has reached only once. “If they need me to play 40 minutes, I’ll play 40 minutes,” Dybantsa told reporters after he played the entirety of the Cougars’ crucial win over Iowa State on Saturday.

If Peterson were to be picked No. 1, he would be only the third such player since 2000 to have sat out more than 10 college games, behind only Kenyon Martin (17 over multiple seasons) and Kyrie Irving (26 in his lone injury-riddled season), per ESPN Research. In addition to the 11 games missed, midgame cramping has forced Peterson to the bench multiple times, where he has been seen using a massage gun. He said he wishes he could play more but didn’t offer specifics regarding what is happening in those moments.

The narrative that Peterson is willingly sitting out games confuses him because it sounds like a critique of his work ethic, which he has never felt challenged on until now. His father would make him toss passes into garbage cans after school when he was a kid in their own spin on an all-star skills challenge in his hometown of Canton, Ohio. That was easy compared to the 108 steps at Monument Park he would have to run on weekends, even on the coldest days of the Midwest winter.

“That kind of stuff, I didn’t like,” Peterson said. “We probably ran up 20 times. Run up it, jump up it, spring up it. One foot hops up it. It always was crazy stuff.”

Peterson isn’t engaged on social media but can hear the chatter — chatter that challenges his integrity as a player and athlete — and that’s where he pushes back. He says he has never feared adversity. But the question remains: Can anyone predict if he’ll be available in March, when the games matter most?

“Let’s do it,” Peterson said when asked for the message he would give to Kansas fans who might worry about whether he’ll play in the NCAA tournament. “That’s the goal.”

In some ways, the question isn’t only about whether Peterson will be available in March. It’s also about whether he’ll be available enough to develop the chemistry needed when he’s on the court with a team that is 9-2 without him. That’s why the clock is ticking, Self acknowledges, for a Kansas squad with big dreams and an unpredictable roster.

Peterson is a scoring savant on a team that defers to him when he’s out there. The Jayhawks have more experience and thus chemistry together when he’s not. Self, with three weeks until Selection Sunday, is trying to merge the two versions — quickly.

“I think that it’s a two different teams mindset when Darryn has been healthy because the guys all want him to do well and the guys know he’s gifted, but still yet I think they take away some of their own personal aggressiveness when he’s out there,” Self told ESPN after the Arizona game. “We’ve got to find a way to where he’s aggressive, but he can make others better and the other guys can be aggressive, too.

“That’s why I’ve said many times that I don’t know that it’s two teams, but I don’t think that we’re close to being where we could potentially be if all things fell together.”

FOR 327 DAYS, Self did not win a game.

He was a first-year head coach at Oral Roberts during the 1993-94 season when his team lost 15 games in a row, a losing streak that bled into the first three games of the next season. On one trip, the coaches played the team in a scrimmage — and the coaches won. The stress piqued that season when Self was pulling all-nighters and a doctor told him he had to relax.

All wasn’t lost, though. That team’s spirits remained high and taught Self a lesson that he has applied to the 2025-26 season.

“It showed me a lot,” he said. “They just loved each other and played for each other. It was so much fun.”

Self said last season’s team liked but didn’t play for each other, playing a role in their first-round exit in the NCAA tournament last March. This season, he has trusted his emotional and competitive leaders, Bidunga and Melvin Council Jr., to help his team avoid a similar letdown.

“[Council] is so much fun because he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he just plays downhill and he’s fast,” Self said. “And he doesn’t know ‘up by four points under two minutes’ and maybe this needs to happen. He’s going to go one against three, he’s going to try to make a shot. But when he does that, it ends up benefiting you.

“I love his attitude.”

These players have weathered the adversity of the season by relying on one another and building a camaraderie that begins with Council, Bidunga and Bryson Tiller, a blossoming redshirt freshman who scored 16 of the Jayhawks’ first 22 points against Arizona. Self has described Council as “the most popular” player on campus while Bidunga is analytically the most important — Kansas has a plus-27.3 point differential per 100 possessions when Bidunga is on the court, per advanced analytics site EvanMiya.

“I’m telling you, bro, you need to pass the rock,” Bidunga joked to Council before the postgame news conference after the win over Arizona.

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Flory Bidunga brings down the house with a filthy throwdown

Flory Bidunga rocks the rim on an alley-oop jam for Kansas.

Because they’ve played without Peterson nearly a dozen times this season, they do not fear that scenario. Nine of Bidunga’s 11 double-doubles have come in games in which Peterson hasn’t played (six) or has played fewer than 25 minutes (three). The Jayhawks won three games in the Players Era Festival without Peterson during Feast Week. Since then, the unknown has been the foundation for a stronger bond within a team that has jelled over Hibachi trips and bowling and tennis matches on Nintendo’s Wii U, which was released when most of Kansas’ players were in elementary school.

“I tell everybody, I feel like I’ve known these guys longer than how long I’ve been here,” said Council, a first-year transfer from St. Bonaventure. “Feels like I’ve known these guys for like four years. We just jelled together.”

But it’s not all fun for this crew.

After a recent loss to West Virginia, there was a players-only meeting to demand more of one another. That meeting led to more wins — and still did not solve the team’s most pressing issue.

“I feel like we really can be special,” Bidunga said. “We just have to find our identity.”

The national champions of the past? They all knew theirs by this point in the season, putting Kansas more than a few steps behind. The Jayhawks are also a top-10 defensive team and their offensive output is comparable with or without Peterson (KU is just plus-0.7 points better per 100 possessions when he’s on the court, per EvanMiya). The win over Arizona established that the Jayhawks can excel in March even with the questions surrounding Peterson’s availability.

“Guys, Kansas is a hell of a team,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said after his team’s loss in Lawrence. “Let’s not make this about Darryn Peterson. He didn’t play because he was sick. They beat the No. 1 team in the country at home. They did a hell of a job, and their coach did a hell of a job. That should be the story.”

AFTER A SERIES of health concerns, Self said he’s no longer focused on the small stuff.

The past few years cost him some of his “joy,” made him feel as if he were just going through the motions while navigating a pair of tough seasons, on and off the court. Those hugs and smiles this season? They’ve come from a coach who has grappled with his own mortality over the past three years.

“I think I am stressing the little things a lot less for the most part,” he said. “But the big things, I still stress like I always have.”

At the top of that list of stressors is the lingering concern that Peterson continues to sit out games for myriad reasons, complicating Self’s ability to help his team grow together as Selection Sunday approaches. Against Arizona, Self didn’t even know Peterson was out until he exited the locker room before the announcement of starting lineups.

“I didn’t feel good really the whole day, but I was like, ‘I’m going to try to go out and warm up and see if I can — I don’t know, [I thought] the fans yelling or something would maybe give me a little extra boost or something,” Peterson said about sitting out the game. “But it just didn’t work [that night]. My legs were heavy and stuff and I was like, ‘Before I’m out here being a liability, I’d rather just let someone else [play] that can give it 100%.'”

Self has made the most of less talented teams a few times in his career, but he knows that a team can’t fake the continuity Kansas will need to make a run in March. He’s not sure it’s even possible unless he has his full roster going forward.

“You know what I worry about is, to me, with all the uncertainties of a season, primarily postseason, ‘Are you prepared for what can happen in the postseason?'” Self said. “Because you might as well expect the unexpected: foul problems, somebody gets hurt last second. There is no excuse. There is no tomorrow, so you’ve got to win that game. Can you just turn it on if you haven’t been together and gone through the stuff together?”

That’s the problem.

Just weeks before Selection Sunday, Kansas can’t be sure which version of the team Self will take into the NCAA tournament. “The best player” he has had is worth the chaos, Self said. Peterson has a usage rate that’s comparable to Stephen Curry’s this season — and he’s shooting better from the (albeit shorter) 3-point line than the NBA All-Star (43.1% for Peterson vs. 39.1% for Curry). Few players in recent college basketball history have matched Peterson’s on-court effectiveness. But consistently turning that talent into winning basketball is a work in progress.

“He could score 16 in a game and dominate, or he can get 30 in a game and dominate, but what’s best for us?” Self said. “And I think it’s got to be that happy medium because we’re going to need him to do it. In [postseason] games, you don’t score off your plays, you score off players. And it’s good to have that guy that can go get it.”

The second half of the win over Arizona highlighted the delicate path this group has walked with the drama around a likely No. 1 pick and their potential regardless of who is ready to play in March. Against the Wildcats, the Jayhawks had to figure it out without Peterson — again. And they did. Down 55-44 with 17:02 to play, a short-handed Kansas outscored an undefeated team 38-23 the rest of the way.

With the help of a crowd that was nearly as loud as a jet engine (128 decibels), the Jayhawks prevailed against the odds, becoming the first team in the past 30 seasons to beat a No. 1 team without a player who averages at least 20 points, according to ESPN Research.

When it was all over and Self had hugged folks he’d rarely hugged before, he walked through the tunnel in Allen Fieldhouse, slowly. As he approached the locker room, he stared at the ground and repeated “wow, wow, wow, wow, wow” while he shook his head and fans cheered around him.

It has been that kind of a season for Kansas, one full of letdowns, unlikely victories and surprises — and perhaps more unknowns ahead.

“We still have a job to do. We still have to compete,” Bidunga said after the game. “We’ve played some games without [Peterson]. And that made us strong. Even though he wasn’t there — I mean, we wish he was there for the game — but unfortunately, he wasn’t. But we still have a job to do, and we did pretty good.”