LAWRENCE — As Jamari McDowell met with reporters this week, ahead of Saturday’s game at Arizona, he acknowledged how fast the season’s gone.
McDowell, a redshirt sophomore with Kansas basketball, mentioned it flying by. He noted that it feels like they were in Las Vegas just weeks ago for the Players Era event, held in November. That there are only three Big 12 Conference regular-season games left, as he described it, is crazy.
But as the race for the Big 12 regular-season crown comes to an end soon, it brings an opportunity for a program to assess where it stands. No. 14 KU coach Bill Self acknowledged this week that No. 2 Arizona (26-2, 13-2) is in firm control of the top spot, holding a two-game lead over a group of Big 12 teams — including Kansas (21-7, 11-4 in Big 12) — with little time remaining. Even though another of Arizona’s remaining regular-season games is against No. 5 Iowa State (24-4, 11-4), that matchup is also in Tucson, Arizona.
“If it doesn’t fall our way on Saturday, I think you could, even though mathematically things are still possible, I think you’re looking at Arizona being the 95% prohibitive favorite to go ahead and close it out,” Self said. “But, who knows? But, I see everybody, obviously, needing a lot of help in order for Arizona not to get it done.”
Arizona hasn’t had its full complement of players available in recent days, including freshman Koa Peat, who has missed the past three games, but it has been able to sustain some success regardless. Self, who thinks Arizona has played smaller in some ways without Peat, pointed out Arizona was still able to beat now-No. 23 BYU at home, now-No. 4 Houston on the road, and Baylor on the road without him. As Arizona has redistributed its minutes, teammates have stepped up.
The advantage Kansas has going into this game, which it didn’t have in Lawrence when the Jayhawks beat Arizona earlier this season, is that freshman Darryn Peterson is available for KU. What time will tell is how much of an advantage that will be.
Peterson is a potential No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, but also someone Kansas is trying to build more chemistry with, given the time he’s missed this season.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas basketball’s Bill Self talks Big 12 regular season title race