The Kansas Jayhawks took care of the Cal Baptist Lancers, 68-60, in a NCAA Tournament first-round game in the East Region in San Diego, Calif., on Friday.
The game wrapped up a solid first round for the Big 12, as the conference went 6-2, with only BYU and UCF losing.
The No. 4 seeded Jayhawks (24-10) were making their 36th straight NCAA Tournament appearance. Cal Baptist (25-9) was making its first in program history. The final score did not highlight the disparity, as the Lancers made a furious rally and had a huge Kansas lead down to two possessions with under a minute to play.
Kansas will face St. John’s in the second round on Sunday in a matchup of coaching legends – Bill Self of Kansas against Rick Pitino of St. John’s.
Here are the takeaways from the game.
Darryn Peterson Gets Efficient
Looking back on Darryn Peterson’s last seven games, he played an average of 31.5 minutes per game. For all the talk of him “tapping out of games” due to cramps or other injuries, he was finally on the floor as much as outsiders desired. But his shooting touch, which was impressive in its efficiency during those physical issues, disappeared.
He averaged 19.2 points per game and shot 36.2% from the floor in that span. At one point this season he was averaging more than a point per minute. That efficiency returned on Friday before the game got crazy down the stretch.
He finished with 28 points and scored all of those in the first 32 minutes of the game. He finished with 37 minutes played and shot 11-of-24 from the field, including four 3-pointers.
If Peterson logs that kind of time and can be as efficient as he was for the first 32 minutes of the game, Kansas starts to look like a more intriguing team in this tournament.
The Scare
Kansas can, at times, be spotty on defense. That was not the case on Friday — at least for the first 30 minutes or so.
The Jayhawks dominated the Lancers, especially in the first half. Well into the second half Cal Baptist was still shooting below 30% for the game. At one point, Kansas was up 26 points and looked like it was in complete control. Then, things got scary.
Cal Baptist’s Dominique Daniels Jr. was in no mood to quit. He finished with 25 points, most of which came in the final 10 minutes of the game. Martel Williams added 15 points. CBU face-guarded Peterson and held him without a point in the final eight minutes. In fact, Kansas went without a point for more than eight minutes as the Lancers cut the lead to six points, 66-60, with under a minute.
Tre White’s biggest basket of the game was a dunk after a Kansas timeout as the Jayhawks broke the CBU press and got it downcourt to White for a clean slam. That sealed it. But Kansas’ inability score down the stretch made it unnecessarily close.
Cal Baptist finished 36% from the floor and 24% from the 3-point line.
Lots of Sunday Storylines
Expect the Kansas-St. John’s game to get a prime-time slot on Sunday in the second round. There are so many reasons why.
Self and Pitino is a dream matchup of coaches. They’re among the best in the game. Even though they’ve been big-time coaches for a long time, meetings between the pair are rare. In fact, they’ve faced each other once — in 2021 at a multi-team event in non-conference. Pitino wasn’t even a high-major coach at the time. He was leading Iona. But he said in the run-up to the game it was their first meeting.
Red Storm forward Zuby Ejiofor started his college career at Kansas and transferred to St. John’s, where he’s become a star. He’s averaging 16.3 points and 7.1 rebounds this season. It’s the first time he’s faced his former team since he left.
There is an intriguing matchup on the line for the winner. On the other side of the bracket is Duke and TCU, who play on Saturday. If Kansas wins, the Jayhawks will either play the top-seeded Blue Devils — who beat the Jayhawks earlier this season — or their Big 12 rival.
