Men's Basketball
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Kansas guard Darryn Peterson (22) and BYU forward AJ Dybantsa (3) compete for a loose ball during the first half on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
A game billed all week as a showdown between the potential top two picks in the 2026 NBA Draft delivered plenty of professional-caliber moments from Kansas’ Darryn Peterson — and not quite as many from BYU’s AJ Dybantsa — in the first half as the Jayhawks jumped ahead by 20 points at halftime, with Peterson having scored 18.
But as Peterson sat out most of the second half, an all-too-familiar sight for KU fans, the responsibility for protecting that lead fell to the rest of the Jayhawks.
They struggled to contain Richie Saunders, who knocked down 3-pointer after 3-pointer before an increasingly aggravated Allen Fieldhouse crowd and scored 24 points in the second half, and KU saw a lead that was once 21 points dwindle all the way down to four. But the 14th-ranked Jayhawks held on for a white-knuckle win over the 13th-ranked Cougars, 90-82, on Saturday afternoon.
“We played great, you know, for 20 minutes,” KU coach Bill Self said. “That’s the best we’ve played all year long. And then we just kind of had to piece it together to end it.”
Dybantsa finished with 17 in 34 minutes, and Robert Wright III added 18, but the senior Saunders, with 33, was the real star for BYU on the day. Bryson Tiller’s career-high 21 points, 16 from Flory Bidunga (who served as the primary defender on Dybantsa and handled it with aplomb) and 15 points, six rebounds and six assists from Melvin Council Jr. gave KU just what it needed to finish off the late challenge.
Council took a bit of the credit for the freshman Tiller’s memorable showing, saying he had gotten in his ear with an important message.
“I just called him soft, but in a different way,” Council said.
BYU struck first on a 3-pointer by the ever-reliable Saunders, but the Jayhawks responded with seven straight before Kennard Davis Jr. rattled in a layup on a drive past Peterson. Peterson had seven points early, though, including a pull-up 3 in transition, as KU led 12-7 at the under-16 media timeout.
The Jayhawks got up eight points before Keba Keita’s hard-fought three-point play inside sent Bidunga to the bench with his first foul.
The teams went back and forth at a fast pace. Tiller, left unguarded beyond the arc, knocked down his first 3-pointer of the day and first in Big 12 play, but a botched rebound on Aleksej Kostić’s attempt at a corner 3 resulted in an easy putback for Saunders.
After Dybantsa’s first shot attempt — a fadeaway over Peterson — bounced out, Tre White battled through contact for a three-point play to make it 25-14 in the Jayhawks’ favor. Bidunga missed a pair of free throws, but Peterson dropped in another 3-pointer after a timeout by BYU.
Midway through the half, the Cougars briefly went to a zone defense, but KU stretched a run as far as 13 straight before Dybantsa knocked down a 3 to make it 33-17 with 7:22 left in the half, ending a scoring drought of more than five minutes.
Wright provided a bit of a spark for BYU at one end, but the Cougars had no defensive answer at the other. Tiller drilled back-to-back 3s from the left corner to give KU its largest lead of the first half at 45-24 and make the Jayhawks 8-for-10 from beyond the arc in the first 17 minutes.
“I thought he was aggressive,” Self said of Tiller. “I think when you play a big guy the way we’re playing him — which we think that’s the best way to play for our team, but it may not be the best way to play for him individually sometimes — I think sometimes he can get a little lost and float, which you guys would agree with me on that. Tonight, I didn’t see that at all. I thought he was aggressive the whole game.”
BYU coach Kevin Young said Tiller deserved “a lot of credit” for his shooting.
“I think he hadn’t made too many 3s on the year,” Young said, “and we were going to make him prove it, which he did, and we adjusted.”
A frantic conclusion to the first half saw both defenses put up minimal resistance. Bidunga goaltended a putback attempt by Keita but then threw down a lob at the other end. Wright came up short on an open 3 on the Cougars’ final possession as KU went into the break up 53-33.
Peterson led all players in scoring after a highlight-laden half, headlined by his vicious dunk over Keita and Mihailo Bošković, off the ankle he had sprained on Jan. 20 against Colorado.
“You guys hadn’t had a chance to see that like we have,” Self said. “Just unfortunate we didn’t see it for 40 minutes.”
The Jayhawks were shooting 3-pointers three times better than the Cougars — 75% to 25% — at the break.
KU wasn’t especially sharp to start the second half, but took advantage of some offensive rebounds for early putbacks by Bidunga and Tiller. Dybantsa knocked down a straight-on 3, and then Saunders got a four-point play on a shot from the left corner that made it 60-46.
In the meantime, Peterson exited with 16:46 to go, limiting him to 20 minutes on the day, one of his earliest exits in a long while after he had finished out his last game against CU. Self said it had been clear to him coming out of the half that Peterson was not as explosive.
With Peterson on the bench for an extended stretch, however, Tiller fired up the crowd with back-to-back dunks.
Amid “overrated” chants from the Allen Fieldhouse crowd, Dybantsa strung together some of his best play of the afternoon, scoring five straight before Saunders rebounded one of his missed free throws and turned it into two more to make it 66-53. Council responded with a much-needed late-clock 3, followed by a transition layup.
BYU rode the hot hand in Saunders, who reached 30 points with just over six minutes to go after hitting back-to-back 3s to cut KU’s advantage down to 12 points. He then connected on yet another after consecutive turnovers by White.
“He’s nice,” Council said. “He can shoot the ball very well. We tried to throw so many different players on him and stuff like that. We just had to just maintain him. When I was checking him, I tried to not let him go through the screens and stuff like that, but he kept doing. Thirty-three points, that’s a lot of points. I give him props, though.”
Dybantsa drove into the body of Bidunga for a layup to make it a two-possession game at 82-76 with two minutes left. After another empty possession for KU, Wright added two more free throws.
With the Jayhawks looking for their first field goal since the 8:48 mark, Self called timeout in the middle of another stagnant possession with 1:11 to go. Council then threw in a leaning jump shot to end the drought and make it 84-78.
“I just had to get a bucket,” Council said. “My teammates was looking for me, and they trust me with the ball, last-minute shot clock, and I just had to make it.”
“It was the play for him to try to get downhill,” Self added. “But guys, we had nothing at the end. There was nothing left in the tank. We were just trying to get to the finish line. We needed to have something good happen.”
Saunders pulled up for a 3-pointer and missed, but a foul on Wright going for the rebound sent Jamari McDowell to the line, where he went 2-for-2.
Bidunga’s alley-oop dunk with 25 seconds left sealed the deal, before Tiller blocked Wright on a frantic layup attempt.
The Jayhawks, who improved to 16-5 (6-2 Big 12) will endure a short rest, as they travel to Lubbock, Texas, to face Texas Tech at 8 p.m. on Monday.
“The only thing that’s unfortunate about the whole thing — obviously Elmarko (Jackson) got nicked up and DP got cramps, but short turnaround,” Self said. “There’s no time to really rest up, because we got to take on a great team on Monday night.”
The Red Raiders have the same record as KU after an 88-80 road loss to UCF on Saturday afternoon.
Box score
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Written By Henry Greenstein
Henry is the sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, and serves as the KU beat writer while managing day-to-day sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (B.A., Linguistics) and Arizona State University (M.A., Sports Journalism). Though a native of Los Angeles, he has frequently been told he does not give off "California vibes," whatever that means.
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