A blue blood's fresh start

Good morning! The 2025-26 college hoops season is closer than ever. How do we know? That first media event of the season is today, and continues through the week. We’ll have coverage on the Missouri Valley’s media day from 9 am - Noon ET.

Watch it on YouTube or X.com/Twitter.

Today’s Field of 68 Daily is written by San Lance. Follow him on X.com/Twitter @slancehoops.

1. A new era for Kansas

Bill Self’s success at Kansas frequently comes with great point guard play. Devonte Graham, Frank Mason were sensational in the late 2010s, and names like Mario Chalmers, Sherron Collins, among others stand out from Self’s tenure. Dajuan Harris, despite the underwhelming team success the last two seasons, did help KU win a national title.

The theme with all of those players? They were multi-year guys who developed into team leaders. That’s the opposite this season as No. 1 overall recruit Darryn Peterson will lead the Jayhawks. But maybe that won’t be such a bad thing.

For one, Kansas needed a fresh start out of the Harris, Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams era. The past two years, Kansas has lacked that elite level NBA talent, and it has seen the worst two-year stretch under Self because of it, even with back-to-back preseason No. 1 rankings.

Kansas won’t receive the same preseason attention; the Jayhawks came in at No. 16 on our preseason top-25. But the talent is there for Kansas to make the NCAA’s tourney’s second weekend.

Peterson will be running the show and have a lot on his shoulders, but I think he’ll be ready for the challenge. He’s currently No. 2 on Bet MGM for NPOY odds and has the talent that can simply change games.

If the Jayhawks’ transfer haul of Melvin Council Jr., Jayden Dawson and Tre White fit in with Peterson and returning center Flory Bidunga, Kansas could be very, very dangerous.

Perhaps most importantly, Kansas should have a clear identity. It’s a roster with long, quick and athletic players at every spot on the floor who have the potential to cause a bunch of chaos on the defensive end. That’ll play right into the hands of Peterson, who’s electric in transition. The only question, as Jeff Goodman and Randolph Childress point out in our offseason grades (below) will be if Kansas can make enough shots from the perimeter.

This roster is young, but exciting. It should be a much different brand of basketball for the Jayhawks this season, and who knows, they may just outperform their preseason expectations this go around.

2. Kansas picks up next PG, lands internet sensation

While Darryn Peterson is set to run Kansas’ show this season, the Jayhawks picked up the floor leader for 2026.

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.