NEW YORK (AP) – A lingering hamstring injury caused Darryn Peterson to miss a third consecutive game for Kansas, and coach Bill Self is not sure when the nation’s top recruit and potentially the top pick in next year’s NBA draft might be ready to play again.
After the 24th-ranked Jayhawks lost to No. 5 Duke in the Champions Classic on Tuesday night, Self said they were “a makeshift team right now.” Peterson has not played since getting hurt during a pregame shootaround on Nov. 11.
“He’s had hamstring tightness, which is caused by a slight hamstring strain,” Self said. “So, until that subsides he’s going to not be confident to play on it, to push off and those sorts of things, which has been going on a fairly significant amount of time.”
Self said the team feels good about how it is handling Peterson and doesn’t expect the absence to be “long at all.” There was no immediate clarity about whether the 18-year-old guard will be able to play next week in the Players Era tournament in Las Vegas.
“He’s going to be re-evaluated later in the week,” Self said. “Yeah, he could not be available to us, but we’ll just have to wait and see after he’s evaluated here.”
Kansas is scheduled to face Notre Dame on Monday and Syracuse next Tuesday.
Peterson averaged 21.5 points over his first two college games, against Green Bay and North Carolina. Kansas had no trouble beating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Princeton without him, but fell behind and could not catch up against the Blue Devils.
“There is a difference (without Peterson),” said Tre White, who scored a game-high 22 points in the 78-66 loss. “Darryn is a 1-on-1 scorer, so we’ve definitely got to make up for that. But the message has been the same: next man up, do the little things, play more aggressive. That’s what we tried to do.”
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