Kansas slid six spots to No. 25 in the AP Top 25 poll after a road loss at North Carolina. The Jayhawks will try to brush themselves off when they host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday in Lawrence, Kan.
Kansas (1-1) led most of the first half against North Carolina and took an eight-point edge into the locker room. But UNC outscored the Jayhawks 58-37 in the second half to pull away and win 87-74.
“It got away from us in the first five minutes of the second half,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after the game. “We went from having control of the game to giving it all back, and then some, in the first five minutes. After that, we didn’t show much maturity and poise when they made their run.”
Kansas star freshman Darryn Peterson led the Jayhawks with 22 points. He’s the first Kansas freshman to score 20 points in back-to-back games since Ochai Agbaji in 2019, and the first Jayhawk since Agbaji in 2021 to open a season with two 20-plus performances.
But there was too little help from the rest of the team. Bryson Tiller had 12 points — all in the first half on four 3-pointers. Tre White was the only other Jayhawk in double figures with 10 points.
“Darryn got off 14 shots, but he probably needed to get off 20 or 22 for us really to have a shot in here tonight,” Self said.
Self knows it’s early, and he believes the loss will help his young team learn how to deal with adversity.
“I thought we had some possessions offensively where we thought there were maybe some 8- or 10-point plays available,” he said. “We’ll get better at it, but we didn’t handle the adversity when they were really cooking.
“We weren’t going to run the table. We need to learn from this. It will happen to Carolina too. It happens to everybody. But we have to try to figure out how to get better from it.
“How many teams are going to come in here and beat Carolina? Not too many. But it teaches us that we need to be better and tougher and more sound.”
Kansas has the front-line depth to take advantage of the Islanders’ lack of height. The Islanders have only one player in the rotation taller than 6-foot-8.
The Islanders (1-2), members of the Southland conference, have lost two straight games.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi lost 85-77 to Tarleton State on Saturday but used a strong second half to get back into the game after trailing 47-28 at halftime. Sheldon Williams recorded a career-high 21 points along with 11 rebounds for his fourth career double-double. He was joined in double figures by Mason Gibson with 14 points, D’Avian Houston with 11 and Kobi Pearson with 10.
The Islanders outscored Tarleton State 49-38 in the second half behind 17-of-35 shooting (48.6%), including 7-of-13 (53.8%) from beyond the arc. The Islanders were hurt by a disparity in made free throws (29 to 18) by the Texans.
