Three Observations From Kansas’ Alarming Loss to Arizona State

Kansas went into tonight's matchup at Arizona State with hopes to finish its road trip to The Grand Canyon State with an even 1-1 record. Instead, it dropped its second game in a row in the second-to-last meeting of the regular season.

The Jayhawks dug themselves into a hole far too deep to come back from, falling 70-60 in Tempe just three days after being blown out by Arizona in Tucson. This game happened to feature just the second ejection of head coach Bill Self's 23-year tenure in Lawrence.

Now sitting at 21-9 with very little momentum, there will rightfully be some tough questions to answer about this squad heading into March Madness. Here are three of our instant takeaways from the awful defeat (though we could probably provide 50 more).

3. Kansas Big Men Continue to Falter

No one on Kansas played particularly well today, and the top headline will be about Darryn Peterson's 3-for-18 shooting night. But one theme that has continued to arise in recent games has been poor play from the team's frontcourt.

Bryson Tiller's struggles continued, as he finished with three points and five rebounds on 1-for-5 shooting. This showing came days after he scored a season-low two points versus Arizona after getting into early foul trouble, in addition to another stinker against Cincinnati two weeks ago.

And Flory Bidunga may have filled up the box score with 14 points and 13 rebounds, but he went 6-for-14 from the field and was highly ineffective competing with one of the worst teams in the Big 12. Dating back six games since the loss to Iowa State, Bidunga's shooting percentages have dramatically dropped. He is hitting 44.9% of his shots in that stretch despite going 151-for-220 (68.6%) in his first 24 outings.

To put into context how unlucky the Jayhawks were tonight, they grabbed 25 offensive rebounds and somehow finished the game with four second-chance points. That might be one of the most disgraceful stats you’ll ever hear, and it certainly didn't help that KU's big men were missing easy looks from point-blank range.

2. The Officiating Was Unfathomably Bad

We’re not going to argue that some of the calls against Kansas were correct. But the officiating in today’s matchup was an absolute disaster and cannot be the standard of the Big 12 Conference.

In the first half alone, ASU shot a grand total of 19 free throws compared to the Jayhawks’ two. A disgraceful offensive foul was also called on Peterson that led to Self’s ejection.

Here’s the no-call on Arizona State that led to a Bill Self ejection for Kansas

Darryn Peterson has the worst whistle in all of sports
pic.twitter.com/SO5JEqPXlQ
— Burch (@braden_burcham_) March 4, 2026

Whether it is the narratives surrounding his health or a personal vendetta against him, Peterson undoubtedly has the worst whistle in college basketball right now. He repeatedly gets mauled off the ball by opponents and is rarely gifted any calls.

The make-up fouls provided in the second half don’t fix what went down in the first 20 minutes. Not everyone will agree with every call, but there needs to be consistency among the officials across both halves. There was none of that today.

1. Team Rallied Behind Bill Self’s Ejection - But It Wasn’t Enough

Although KU’s first-half performance was abysmal versus an opponent of this caliber, a near-comeback from down 20 points deserves some props. It was clear that the team wanted to make a statement about its coach being ejected and rallied behind that fact.

In the end, it did not turn out to be enough. Fans may find solace in knowing that the Jayhawks fought hard, or they may not. Regardless, the entire team has some cleaning up to do heading into the postseason, or this will turn out to be yet another lost campaign in Coach Self's dwindling years as head coach.