Kansas star Darryn Peterson opens up about 'traumatic experience' of cramps

Shreyas Laddha, The Kansas City Star on Mar 14, 2026

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For much of the season, Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball star Darryn Peterson has dealt with a variety of health issues.

The freshman guard missed 11 games during the 2025-26 season, his only one in Lawrence as he heads to the NBA draft, due to various health issues. And when he has played, he was rarely fully healthy.

The one constant? He’s dealt with cramping issues for months, a condition that many thought first surfaced when KU played Louisville in an October exhibition game.

Multiple sources have told The Kansas City Star for months that Peterson’s cramping started well before that. And after KU’s loss to Houston in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals on Friday at T-Mobile Center, he opened up about what he’s gone through and when the cramping really began.

Peterson admitted his first cramping occurred a week after KU’s annual boot camp training period, which takes place in early September.

“The previous week we had boot camp where we were just running, no basketball,” Peterson said. “The previous week caught up to me and my body just locked up on me, I guess.”

Peterson admitted he suffered from full-body cramps and had to go to the hospital at one point, where he received two bags of intravenous fluids. He didn’t recall how long he was at the hospital for the IV, but he said it was a difficult experience.

“I had like a full-body (cramp), super serious,” he said. “You could say it was traumatic. I would say it was a traumatic experience.”

In multiple games this season, anytime Peterson sensed that cramping coming on, he was quick to ask to come out of the game. He had a hard time forgetting that initial bout with cramps.

“As much as I want to say I wasn’t (thinking about that experience),” he said, “it was traumatic for me.”

Peterson called it “a huge factor.”

“It was traumatic for me. So much, I tried to fight until it … I kind of couldn’t,” he said. “Your mind is a joystick, my dad tells me. You can’t beat your mind.”

Peterson told The Star he never considered shutting himself down for the season. But he does wish he had done some things differently over the past several months.

“There was some foolish stuff being said, but I could have probably did better in probably (getting) in front of it instead of people making stuff up,” Peterson said. “It’s over now, but don’t nobody say nothing about me finishing games and stuff now, which is funny to me. But I don’t really care. I am just glad I am feeling better.”

The tide does appear to have shifted for Peterson. He’s played seven straight games without asking to come out. He played a season-high in minutes — 37 — scoring 24 points and grabbing eight rebounds in KU’s win over TCU in Thursday’s Big 12 quarterfinals.

After that game, Peterson was asked if he felt 100% healthy for the first time this season.

“You could say that, yeah,” he said. “You could say that.”