By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uninterrupted
For the first time in a few years, Kansas Basketball has put together a team that I’m going to be sad to see go.
They’re not the most well-constructed team in the world, they have a light bench, and four out of their seven rotation players are guards, but on the court, somehow, someway, it works.
The Big 12 is, by far, the best basketball conference in the country, and KU has beaten all its top teams this year. Arizona, Houston, Iowa State, and Texas Tech have all fallen to the Hawks at one point or another this year. In my mind, KU has proven that they can beat any team in the country. Yet, I still fear the possibility of an early exit from March Madness.
These fears started early on in Big 12 play. The Jayhawks nearly lost their first three games once the calendar flipped to January. They dropped two road games to inferior opponents in UCF and West Virginia, and barely beat the TCU Horned Frogs in Allen Fieldhouse.
After this sluggish start, much hay was made about this team’s flaws.
KU is a team primarily comprised of premium role players. Melvin Council Jr. and Elmarko Jackson are slashing guards who provide strong defense on the other end. Tre White is a strong, two-level scorer who’s great at getting to the line and hitting his free throws. Flory Bidunga and Bryson Tiller are athletic big men who create a nightmare for opposing players trying to get to the rim, and make great lob targets on the offensive end. Just these five players alone, and the spot-up shooting from Jamari McDowell, make for a pretty good, everybody-eats team, greater than the sum of its parts.
What the team has yet to figure out, however, is how the most talented player on the squad, Darryn Peterson, fits into the formula. Peterson is projected to go No. 1 in the upcoming NBA draft, despite missing a significant amount of time this year for injury and illness. Even when Peterson does play, he often will sit out a second half, apparently due to nagging injuries. Peterson is the type of player who ends up with the ball in his hands. He’s an efficient, three-level scorer who often makes difficult shots look easy.
When Peterson is on the floor, suddenly, the team is orbiting around him. His teammates don’t eat as much. The team looks less comfortable, and if he has a bad game, they’re screwed.
That’s exactly what happened on Feb. 21 when KU lost by 16 points, at Allen Fieldhouse to a 14-12 Cincinnati team. Ouch. Peterson took 17 shots, the most of anyone on the team. Seven of his 17 shots were three-point attempts, and he hit one of them. One.
Some people have gone so far as to say that the team is better without Peterson. While I think that is a definite overstatement, what is abundantly clear is that the team hasn’t quite found its identity with Peterson on the floor.
I would argue this team is at its best when Peterson, despite his surplus in talent, plays like he’s just another premium role player. When he’s off-ball, running around and getting open for three, he can’t be double-teamed into a mistake, and he doesn’t have to dribble himself into chucking up a difficult shot.
The game that immediately followed the embarrassing Cincinnati loss was against Houston, the #5 team in the country at the time. Foolishly, I was not going into that game with high hopes. They won convincingly, 69 to 56. Oddly, Peterson played even worse against Houston than he did against Cincinnati, but you know what, he took fewer shots.
I do think Peterson can get fully metabolized into KU’s system come March, but man, the clock is ticking. If that happens, KU will be a true contender for a Final Four, or even a National Championship this year. If it doesn’t happen, there’s a real shot they don’t make it to the second weekend again this year.
Brendan Ulmer is a reporter at The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at brendan@hutchtribune.com.