College Basketball 2025-26 season thread

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Icky Mettle said:
As talented as he is, if I’m an NBA team with one of the top 3 picks, I might consider taking the next guy on the board over him.
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My thoughts exactly. Certainly the NBA scouts know more about it than we do, but if he’s having trouble physically navigating his one year of college basketball, how in the world is he going to be able to handle the NBA. In the league you play at least twice as many games.
 
SnoopRob said:
I think his camp is certainly being super cautious with him. I also think he's experiencing real issues with this hamstring.

I understand why he (or his camp) wouldn't want to risk his NBA future for his college present, but I do find the situation a bit weird and I hope he ends up ok.
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I usually give the player the benefit of the doubt but I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the guy just isn’t that interested in playing college basketball. If he and his family feel like it’s in his best interest long term to minimize injury risk until he’s in the NBA then that’s their call, but if I’m Kansas I would be so over the wishy washiness lol. Either play the games or quit the team.
 
I might have had some sympathy for a consensus number one draft pick back when players weren't able to get paid that they need to protect their future, but by some accounts he's getting over $2 million this year. If you are making that kind of cabbage you need to step up and play absent an injury. This was one of the biggest games of the year as well.

I will also note that we should get some additional cred in the fact that in our win over KU Peterson played.
 
It’s just further professionalization of the college game

The top of the draft is going to come down to fit and what teams have those picks
 
Peppers49 said:
I usually give the player the benefit of the doubt but I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the guy just isn’t that interested in playing college basketball. If he and his family feel like it’s in his best interest long term to minimize injury risk until he’s in the NBA then that’s their call, but if I’m Kansas I would be so over the wishy washiness lol. Either play the games or quit the team.
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I disagree, because I think it would be fairly easy for him to shut it down for the season citing his on-going hamstring issue, yet he hasn't done so. (Of course, last night wasn't due to the hamstring, it was flu-like symptoms.) If he didn't want to play college basketball, he has an easy reason to stop doing so, but he's still going out there to play.

Unless he fails his physicals before the draft, he's almost certainly a top-3 pick, which means he's juggling playing through injury now versus $26-36mil in rookie deal guaranteed salary. I don't underestimate how much not screwing up that payoff with a more significant injury before the draft has to weigh on his decision.

If KU decides they want to tell him to either play 30+ minutes every game or sit out, they can certainly do so, but I doubt it would make the team better and I really doubt he'd risk his NBA future to play those minutes now.
 
SnoopRob said:
I disagree, because I think it would be fairly easy for him to shut it down for the season citing his on-going hamstring issue, yet he hasn't done so. (Of course, last night wasn't due to the hamstring, it was flu-like symptoms.) If he didn't want to play college basketball, he has an easy reason to stop doing so, but he's still going out there to play.

Unless he fails his physicals before the draft, he's almost certainly a top-3 pick, which means he's juggling playing through injury now versus $26-36mil in rookie deal guaranteed salary. I don't underestimate how much not screwing up that payoff with a more significant injury before the draft has to weigh on his decision.

If KU decides they want to tell him to either play 30+ minutes every game or sit out, they can certainly do so, but I doubt it would make the team better and I really doubt he'd risk his NBA future to play those minutes now.
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Like I said, I’m almost always going to give the player the benefit of the doubt. I just feel like there’s more to this situation than a nagging injury that Peterson’s camp wants to be cautious with.
 
Peppers49 said:
Like I said, I’m almost always going to give the player the benefit of the doubt. I just feel like there’s more to this situation than a nagging injury that Peterson’s camp wants to be cautious with.
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I'm curious what else you think might be going on?

I certainly believe that Peterson's camp is being super cautious, but I think that's understandable.
 
SnoopRob said:
I'm curious what else you think might be going on?

I certainly believe that Peterson's camp is being super cautious, but I think that's understandable.
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i mean......he's missed nearly half of KU's games (DNP 11 of 24) through a combination of not-very-serious injuries and illnesses.

i'd be annoyed if i was a KU fan.
 
4thgenheel said:
i mean......he's missed nearly half of KU's games (DNP 11 of 24) through a combination of not-very-serious injuries and illnesses.

i'd be annoyed if i was a KU fan.
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How have we determined that his injuries are "not-very-serious"?

I'd think a hamstring injury is pretty serious, not the most standard recovery, and the kind of thing that could be made much worse if not handled well.
 
SnoopRob said:
I'm curious what else you think might be going on?

I certainly believe that Peterson's camp is being super cautious, but I think that's understandable.
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I probably should have worded that differently. Clearly Peterson and his camp being concerned about getting injured is the driving factor here.

I guess my point is that this pattern of him seemingly arbitrarily picking when he is and isn’t going to play is super unusual even for a player dealing with a nagging injury. As another poster pointed out, I would have more empathy if these were the old days when players had no choice but to play in college and couldn’t get NIL. If I were a major college program presumably paying him millions of dollars, I would be pretty fed up with how he’s handling the situation.
 
SnoopRob said:
How have we determined that his injuries are "not-very-serious"?

I'd think a hamstring injury is pretty serious, not the most standard recovery, and the kind of thing that could be made much worse if not handled well.
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because none of them have required a long term absence or surgery? a hamstring strain is annoying and certainly needs to be handled with caution but not serious in and of itself.

and he also had the vague cramping issue and an ankle issue? and how many illnesses, two? luckily for KU he's been more available in the new year but he played 4 games in 2025. it's weird.

boozer, dybantsa, wilson, etc. are playing a ton of games and really appear to want to play as much as possible and help their teams win. peterson is the outlier.
 
Peppers49 said:
I probably should have worded that differently. Clearly Peterson and his camp being concerned about getting injured is the driving factor here.

I guess my point is that this pattern of him seemingly arbitrarily picking when he is and isn’t going to play is super unusual even for a player dealing with a nagging injury. As another poster pointed out, I would have more empathy if these were the old days when players had no choice but to play in college and couldn’t get NIL. If I were a major college program presumably paying him millions of dollars, I would be pretty fed up with how he’s handling the situation.
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I think saying that when he plays or doesn't is "arbitrary" is assigning a value judgment that I'm not sure is warranted. What I see is a guy who is suffering a lingering injury that won't fully heal and that seemingly tightens up during games and prevents him from playing as many minutes as he'd like. And barring any info emerging that suggests that isn't the case, I'm not sure why he wouldn't get the benefit of the doubt.

I can imagine that KU is pretty frustrated with the situation, but I'm not sure why they'd be frustrated with him unless they think he's intentionally sandbagging his recovery to miss games.

I guess you can look at it 1 of 2 ways...that he's at fault for not going out there and risking further injury to play for KU this year because he's getting paid a significant amount of money or that he's likely doing the best he can to try to contribute to the team as much as he can without creating significant risk of further injury. Unless something happens that suggests he's intentionally not playing when he could without further risk, I lean toward perspective two as it seems that he could easily have shut down his season already but he's not yet done so.
 
SnoopRob said:
I think saying that when he plays or doesn't is "arbitrary" is assigning a value judgment that I'm not sure is warranted. What I see is a guy who is suffering a lingering injury that won't fully heal and that seemingly tightens up during games and prevents him from playing as many minutes as he'd like. And barring any info emerging that suggests that isn't the case, I'm not sure why he wouldn't get the benefit of the doubt.

I can imagine that KU is pretty frustrated with the situation, but I'm not sure why they'd be frustrated with him unless they think he's intentionally sandbagging his recovery to miss games.

I guess you can look at it 1 of 2 ways...that he's at fault for not going out there and risking further injury to play for KU this year because he's getting paid a significant amount of money or that he's likely doing the best he can to try to contribute to the team as much as he can without creating significant risk of further injury. Unless something happens that suggests he's intentionally not playing when he could without further risk, I lean toward perspective two as it seems that he could easily have shut down his season already but he's not yet done so.
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I mean I doubt we would ever get official confirmation that he is or isn’t doing everything in his power to get out on the court, but yeah I’m definitely looking at it through the lens of option 1 lol. I see a guy that doesn’t give a shit at all about Kansas or college basketball and is just looking for any excuse to not play.
 
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