Next Tuesday, the No. 25 Kansas Jayhawks will be traveling to Madison Square Garden to take on the No. 4 Duke Blue Devils in the State Farm Champions Classic. The game should easily register as one of the most anticipated of the season, with two historic schools facing off.
The talk over the last couple of days in the Jayhawk camp is whether former five-star Darryn Peterson would be healthy enough to play. Peterson was ruled out of Saturday’s 76-57 win over the Princeton Tigers earlier this week by head coach Bill Self. Self ruled that Peterson was going to be missing out thanks to a tight hamstring.
Following the Jayhawks’ victory, Self was asked about the team’s paltry three-point rate, which stood at just 23.8% and measured out to a 5-21 clip. Self mentioned that under regular circumstances, Peterson would be set to take around a third of Kansas’ threes. Self was then stated, saying,
“We’re not obviously going to have him at least for the immediate future. I just don’t know how long that’ll be.”
Self was then asked if they knew the fitness levels for Peterson ahead of the trip up north.
“No. Yeah, we got some things to discuss, and we’re looking at…But he’s got tightness in his right hamstring. And, you know, he wants to be out there so bad, but, you know, I’m not gonna put him out there till he feels well. And, you know, you can say or think, ‘Well, we’re trying to win the battle.’ Well, yeah, we are, but the battle’s not near as important as the long term, you know, so to speak, and we got to get him where he’s not hesitant to play.”
“...You know, we need to get him where he can explode without the thought in his mind that something negative could happen. And it probably won’t, I don’t want to put him in a situation where he’s got to think about that.”
Kansas vs Duke Full Guide: When, where, TV, streaming for Champions Classic
Peterson has suffered an early-season setback, missing the majority of the second half of Kansas’ opening exhibition 90-82 win over the No. 12 Louisville Cardinals due to cramping.
Peterson then missed out entirely on Kansas’ 71-35 win over Fort Hays State with a stomach bug in their second exhibition, before being removed for almost the entire second half of Kansas’ season-opening 94-51 win over the Green Bay Phoenix with a combination of injury precaution and due to the massive scoreline. Before looking healthy enough to play in the Jayhawks’ 87-74 loss to the No. 18 North Carolina Tar Heels. Since then, Peterson has not featured in the two games following North Carolina.
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