SAN DIEGO — Darryn Peterson was the last Kansas player to leave the floor Sunday, a slow pace to his final steps in a college uniform. He glanced up ever-so-briefly but closed his eyes as his head tilted toward the sky.

In a matter of months, he will trade the most turbulent half-year of his basketball life to be the face of some NBA team’s future. Here, though, he served merely as a background image as St. John’s mobbed its point guard.

Dylan Darling flicked the game-winning layup over Elmarko Jackson as time expired to lift St. John’s to a 67-65 win, a bucket that halted both a KU comeback and its season.

The game’s hero did not make a shot in the initial 40 minutes but sunk one after the clock showed zero.

The projected No. 1 pick is headed home.

Peterson arrived in Lawrence, Kan., less than a year ago, an 18-year-old freshman brought in to rescue Kansas from a multi-year slump — relatively speaking. But he is instead now lodged in the middle of it.

The Jayhawks have not advanced to the second week of the NCAA Tournament in the last four years, and they were underdogs to advance there in the last three. They tried the route of heavily experienced players built around a 7-foot-1 transfer — the most experienced roster in the country a year ago, in fact.

They turned to a freshman phenom guard prepared to play in the NBA, despite the doubts about his health.

What next?

So rarely has that question in Lawrence felt this open-ended — this, well, unanswered.

Because it includes the coach. Only minutes after a heartbreaking loss, the first buzzer-beater to end one of his KU seasons, Self said he hasn’t yet made a decision about whether he will return for a 24th season.

“I love what I do,” he said. “I want to feel good while I’m doing it, though.”

That’s a reference to his health.

But what’s felt good about the job for the last four years?

A health issue robbed him of one tournament appearance before KU stumbled into the next two and couldn’t stay on its feet past the opening weekend.

It only built the anticipation for what awaited. Peterson might be the most college-ready player Self has coached, a resume that includes an NBA MVP winner. The vision of what KU could develop into with a No. 1 talent seemed tantalizing. The reality was a tumultuous year defined more by his cramps and seesaw availability than signature moments.

A remarkable contrast in lead-player skill-sets concluded in an identical outcome:

Kansas never quite looked like Kansas.

That’s both a compliment to the ridiculous standard Self has built and a comment on how difficult the last three years have looked.

This year, it wasn’t just the cramps or the injuries. Peterson looked as healthy as he had all year during March — he said after the game Sunday he felt he showed his true potential “when healthy.”

But rather than breathing a little more life into a group that had begun playing with an already pretty good pulse, his presence mystifyingly stifled it.

Melvin Council was 12-for-50 over the final four games. Flory Bidunga didn’t top 14 points in any of his final eight games after reaching that mark in nearly half of his initial 27. Tre White disappeared Sunday, and Bryson Tiller played as though he preferred to be anywhere but San Diego. Those aren’t role players. They’re the four starters surrounding Peterson.

Absent, all of them.

Dating back to their second half Friday against Cal Baptist, KU navigated a 19-minute, 36-second stretch with only one bucket scored by anyone other than Peterson — and it was a White dunk to punctuate that win with just 13 seconds left. The supporting cast missed its initial 13 3-point attempts in this tournament before Self brought Kohl Rosario cold off the bench — too late, probably — and he finally buried one in the second half.

That’s how this season inexplicably evolved alongside Peterson, though I hesitate to use any form of that word — evolution — because KU showed precisely none of it.

“I didn’t think we ever got rhythm offensively the whole year,” Self said, adding: “It’s easier to get rhythm when you’re comfortable, and the key to having rhythm is doing it when you’re put under duress. I didn’t think we handled that very well at all.”

The rest of the roster became content to leave that reply to Peterson, yet he didn’t take a shot for the final 13 minutes of the first half Sunday, when St. John’s stretched its lead to eight.

But the intent isn’t to make this seem like a March 22, 2026 problem — or even a 2025-26 problem.

For three years, Kansas hasn’t been able to tap an easy button. As the rest of the country prioritizes 3s and layups, neither have come easily for KU.

In Self’s initial 20 seasons at KU, the program only once finished outside the top 50 in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency. Their last three years: 59, 52 and 59.

That’s why the aforementioned question, the one that confronts every college coach at the conclusion of every college season — what next? — resonates a little longer now. They have to improve offensively. They have to find the easy button.

Self is careful with his words, purposeful, and he used his postgame presser here in San Diego to cast doubt about his own future. He plans to talk with family before reaching a decision.

But if he does return?

That question still lingers.

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