By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uninterrupted
University of Kansas football is alright, and usually, for a spoiled brat like myself, alright just won’t do.
As a 22-year-old who grew up in Kansas City, I have watched the Chiefs win the AFC West every year since I was 13, and they haven’t had a losing season since I was 9.
I watched the Royals make it to two World Series when I was in middle school, then welcome a generational talent in Bobby Witt Jr. to the big leagues when I was in college.
However, realistically, I know it’s unreasonable for me to expect KU Football to be contenders for anything besides the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl.
Before Lance Leipold came into the picture, KU Football had been the doormat of college football. In 2018, I went to the Booth and watched them lose a nailbiter to Nicholls State. Do you know how sad the walk to the car is when you lose to Nicholls State? Luckily, neither of Nicholls State’s fans rubbed it in our faces.
Before this season began, ESPN projected KU Football to lose only three games this season. One to Mizzou, one to Texas Tech, and one to Kansas State. Even in two of their projected losses, ESPN believed KU Football had at least a 45% chance of winning. ESPN was calling them potential playoff contenders.
Barely passing the halfway mark of the season, they’ve already blown past those three expected losses.
Some may say that KU Football has fallen short of their projections, that they’re having a disappointing season. I’d say those people do not understand the purpose of KU Football. KU Football is a multimillion-dollar program designed to kill time until basketball season, and I’d say they’ve done their job very well.
KU Basketball is here, and nothing has me more excited than their relatively low expectations.
For the last couple of years, KU has been the best team in the country, in theory, and in theory only. In 2023 and 2024, they entered the season already ranked No. 1 because the Associated Press really liked the names on the roster. Unfortunately, when those names would actually start playing basketball, they’d fall well short of expectations.
I was very pleased with the direction Bill Self took to rebuild this roster. No less than six times this offseason, I would get a notification that KU Basketball had landed a transfer or under-the-radar recruit, and I’d react, “Who?”, then run to the blogs and see the experts saying, “Oh, this guy, he’s one of Bill Self’s guys”, which is a sentence that hit my ears like beautiful music.
To be one of Self’s guys requires a few key skills and traits. You have to be an intense defender, an absolute pest on the ball, and a thief in the lanes. You have to be athletic, the stride of a gazelle and the leaping ability of a frog. You also have to have a high motor and work ethic, fighting for every rebound and chasing every loose ball.
It seems like Self has intentionally tried to create a roster that’s more of an intricate machine, as opposed to a collection of stars he can use as a blunt instrument to beat weak opponents with.
Don’t get it twisted, though—this team still has stars. In fact, this team may have THE star. The scuttlebutt in sports media, from podcaster Bill Simmons specifically, is that KU’s freshman guard Darryn Peterson may be the next Kobe Bryant. Simmons also predicted that Peterson will be on the USA Basketball team during the 2028 Olympics.
If Peterson is indeed the “Kobe prototype” he’s being hailed as, not only is he the platonic ideal of one of Bill Self’s guys, he’s also potentially more talented than any of the names KU has had over the last few years.
Self himself has called Peterson his “most talented freshman, hands-down,” that he’s ever coached. High praise coming from a Hall-of-Famer.
Another player who’s expected to make a big contribution this year is sophomore returnee Flory Bidunga.
As someone who attended college with him last year, the Congolese big man was hard to miss. You’d catch him smiling around campus or zipping down Massachusetts Street on a Bird scooter. He seems like fun incarnate, and I’ve never seen such an athletic 6’10” guy in my life.
Last year, Bidunga was second on the team in rebounds, with 5.4 a game, despite being a bench player who only played an average of 16.3 minutes per game (for reference, NCAA basketball games are 40 minutes). My dream for him is to take a big leap forward this year and be a 10-point and 10-rebound-a-game guy.
Ultimately, this may not be THE year for KU Basketball, but there is certainly a lot to be excited about and look forward to.