Jayhawks star Peterson not playing vs. UConn, missing 7th game - ESPN

Kansas star freshman Darryn Peterson will miss Tuesday's showdown against UConn with a lingering hamstring injury, the school announced.

Peterson has missed the last six games with the injury.

«Darryn is not going to play tonight,» coach Bill Self said in a statement. «He is very close. He has worked his butt off, but he is still not 100 percent. He is day-to-day.»

Peterson averaged 21.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists in the first two games of the season before missing the rest of the month.

He entered the season as the frontrunner for the No. 1 pick in June's NBA draft.

With Peterson sidelined, Kansas has won five of six games, with the lone loss coming to Duke at Madison Square Garden. The Jayhawks went 3-0 at the Players Era Championship in Las Vegas last week, including an 81-76 win over Tennessee in the third-place game.

Self has gone with a bigger lineup without Peterson, going with 6-foot-11 Bryson Tiller next to Flory Bidunga down low. Tiller has responded by averaging 9.2 points and 7.2 rebounds as a starter.

Kansas also moved guard Jamari McDowell, who played sparingly over the first few weeks, into the starting lineup for the final two games in Vegas. McDowell brings some length and shooting to the Jayhawks' perimeter; he made two 3s in each of his two games as a starter.