The Athletic has live coverage of the second round of 2026 Men’s March Madness.
The final episode of Darryn Peterson’s season cut to black Sunday afternoon — the presumed No. 1 NBA Draft pick turning just in time to watch Dylan Darling’s layup drop, lingering a beat before ambling off the floor — his head fixed upward as the buzzer sealed it.
What followed was settled. What stayed behind wasn’t so much.
The buzzer-beater that froze Kansas’ year on a 67-65 decision — a gut-punch at the horn — cut short the version of the Jayhawks’ heralded freshman that “not at all” fully arrived, the one where the flashes stopped flickering and finally held.
“1,000 percent,” KU guard Tre White said on whether Peterson had more to show. “He’s finally getting healthy at the right time. He’s getting that juice back in his tank to not be able to dance for a couple more games, that hurts.
“You see your brother getting talked about daily, you just want to prove everybody wrong. … One of the best seasons I’ve ever seen from a young guy.”
Darryn Peterson on what he wants KU fans to remember him most by:#kubball x #MarchMadnessMBB pic.twitter.com/8fHNypkQY6
— Micaela Dea (@MicaelaDeaTV) March 23, 2026
The year lurched, reset and bent out of shape. Peterson moved through it in fragments, navigating what he called “body stuff,” never quite settling into the rhythm players of his caliber usually command. Some nights, it all came easy — projection and reality finally in sync — and others, that version hovered out of reach.
Kansas lived in that fluctuation with him. The brilliance was undeniable, and so were the breaks in it.
“I was hurt for a majority of it (the season), I wasn’t really myself, really, until the end of the year,” Peterson said. “So I guess whatever people see in these last games is kind of me.”
And despite what swirls around him, Peterson said his season isn’t defined by what slipped away. Instead, it’s tagged by what was there, even if that was fragments of magic stitched together.
“I don’t believe in what could have been,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Inside the Jayhawks locker room after absorbing a loss that’ll “sting” for months down the line, the conversation doesn’t dwell on what wasn’t for Peterson as much as circling what’s still there.
Start to ask guard Jamari McDowell where Peterson ranks — the specifics of the question yet to be formed — and he cuts it off immediately.
“Number one,” he said.
“He’s got it. He’s the best ever. We’ll just put that nail in that coffin. He’s the best ever.”
That kind of certainty exists alongside something else, an understanding that there’s still untapped wizardry from the All-Big 12 freshman.
“I don’t think so,” guard Melvin Council Jr. said when asked if Peterson reached his full potential this season. “But he’s going to.”
That belief isn’t rooted in projection as much as proximity, in the version Peterson’s teammates saw in stretches — the one that surfaced late, the one they’re convinced is still ahead.
Even coach Bill Self, who rode every swing of Peterson’s uneven season, framed it less as inconsistency and more as circumstance.
“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.
The version that Kansas “knows” is the one that never fully took hold over the course of the season. It appeared, disappeared and reappeared just enough to shape how the year will be remembered.
And maybe that’s where the tension sits.
Because Peterson showed enough to leave no doubt about what he is: a player who will almost certainly hear his name early on draft night. But he never quite stayed on the floor, or in rhythm, long enough for that version to feel continuous, to stretch across weeks instead of moments.
By the time it found any steadiness, there was little season left to hold onto.
“Watching his high school highlights,” Council Jr. said, “you see what he can do. Scoring 60 points, 70 points, that’s what y’all didn’t see yet.”
Kansas, in the end, got a season that somehow managed to confirm everything while still leaving something completely ajar.