No. 24 Kansas wants to improve its shooting when it plays Notre Dame in the opening round of the Players Era men’s tournament on Monday in Las Vegas.
The four-day tournament is a chance for Kansas (3-2) to get back on the winning side of the ledger after a 78-66 neutral-court setback against No. 5 Duke on Tuesday in New York.
Tre White racked up a game-high 22 points, Melvin Council Jr added 15 points and Flory Bidunga pitched in 14 points. But the Jayhawks shot just 43.3% from the field and hit only 4 of 21 3-point attempts (19%).
Darryn Peterson is still doing individual work but is not practicing with the team yet and won’t see action in Players Era games. The 6-foot-6 freshman guard from Ohio was the Naismith Trophy High School Player of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American last year. He also was the No. 1 ranked recruit by 247Sports and On3.
“We’re not going to have Darryn in Vegas,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “Although we have reevaluated, and he’s right there, close. But he hasn’t quite done enough to put himself in position to go out and play multiple games in a short span like that. So, we’re hopeful he’s running and cutting and doing all of those things while we’re in Vegas, but not to the point where he’s probably ready to play.”
In two games, Peterson has averaged 21.5 points per game and shot 60% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc. Self expects Peterson’s classmate Kohl Rosario and Loyola Chicago transfer Jayden Dawson to soon acclimate to the pace at which Kansas will play.
“We haven’t shot it well yet,” Self said. “Our shot selection stunk. But we haven’t shot it well yet. The game is a little too fast for Kohl. It’s a little too fast for Jayden. Melvin (Council Jr.) will make one out of three but he doesn’t look to shoot it. He looks to get a step closer. Our shooting is concerning, but I still think we’ll be an above-average shooting team.”
Notre Dame (4-1) topped Bellarmine 86-79 on Wednesday at home. Markus Burton led all scorers with 25 points. Burton (19.4 points) leads Notre Dame in scoring. Carson Towt had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
The Fighting Irish had a 36-24 edge on points in the paint. Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry said the Fighting Irish will be tested by Kansas’ interior size.
“This is our first opportunity to kind of play against a double-big lineup,” Shrewsberry said. “(It will let us) kind of see where we’re at. We got to be able to keep rebounding the ball on both ends of the court versus big lineups. This will be our first test to do it.”
Towt, the team’s leading rebounder with nearly nine more per game than anyone else at 12.6, will need some help on the glass against the Jayhawks’ big front court.
“This is a big game,” Shrewsberry said. ” We’re gonna play a big team. We need his defense and rebounding to go up to a whole other level this week. That’d be really important for us.”
