Despite being promised a “new level of explosiveness”, it happened again — Darryn Peterson sat out crunch time after scoring 26 in 23 minutes (!). Cramps? Pitch count? Some other weirder third thing? Who knows at this point!

Here’s Self:

“Darryn—who I wanted to put on a minutes restriction, that’s what we had talked about…I really couldn’t do it in the first half and we paid for it in the second half because obviously his legs started bothering him again,” Self said via Michael Swain.” So that was disappointing. We were going to do the minutes restriction around 24 minutes and he ended up playing about that but he played way too many in the first half. We were playing so poorly and he kept us in there.”

The DP debacle is Self’s Final Boss — the one issue he can’t really figure out how to talk around.

KU fans have a right to feel exhausted by the saga. This team has something, however they’re thin, and for KU’s standards in the Self era, not very talented. This has become a recurring issue in the NIL landscape, so the idea of parting with someone as talented as Peterson is currently a worst-case scenario. I’ll get there in a second.

At critical moments in Saturday’s loss to UCF, McDowell had to come in at PF for an ineffective Bryson Tiller. Self threw in Samis Calderon, who has barely played even in non-competitive games, in desperation. Melvin Council Jr. went off in the second half, but was not a scoring threat when he and Peterson were in together. Not great!

So… what happens now? I think a decision has to be made, and I’m gonna run through the options in loose priority of preference:

OPTION A: Bring Peterson off the bench. Let’s give this thing the “full Remy.” Not only does this allow the starting group to move around — they ball-watch when Peterson is in the starting group — using Peterson in bursts feels like a manageable-yet-effective utilization of his bucketry. If he can’t play 40 minutes, use those 20-24 minutes in high leverage situations.

Zooming out, it’s kind of ridiculous to bring a guy like this off the bench in any college basketball scenario (he will not come off the bench ever in the NBA) but this is a ridiculous situation. Let’s meet the moment here.

OPTION B: Extended shut-down. If the physical issue is solvable, take the time to solve it and use Peterson when it matters most.

I wish I believed in a non-Peterson version of this roster that could be a threat to a good opponent in the tournament, but unfortunately I do not believe in that. Cede some power and be calculated about Peterson’s usage.

OPTION C: Amicable break-up. There’s a world where this option just makes the most sense. Peterson has his eyes on the prize, and every second he’s on the court firms up his status as the #1 overall pick. He is going to score 70 as a rookie in the NBA, his scoring is just that effortless. I was crowing about shot selection earlier in the year, but Peterson breaks that concept every game — when anything you flip up goes in half the time, all shots are good shots.

It’s clearly driving Self crazy that he’s the mouthpiece for all the messaging here. While there’s clearly tension between program, family and DP’s representation, the kid is in the middle of this and I feel bad about that.

That’s all for now. Woof. Let’s enjoy the buckets while we still can, no matter what happens.