Darryn Peterson says he's finally figured out the reason for his cramping issues at Kansas

It was a mixed freshman year for Darryn Peterson at Kansas. While the 19-year-old showed immense skill on the court, various injuries and cramping issues resulted in Peterson playing in just 24 games, often seeing limited minutes in those contests.

Despite those issues, Peterson declared for the 2026 NBA Draft after just one season at Kansas. He’s expected to be one of the top players selected in the event.

But Peterson likely would have been the easy No. 1 overall pick had he experienced a healthy first season at Kansas. With the NBA Draft fast approaching, Peterson said he finally figured out why he was plagued by cramping issues last season. He said it was due to taking high doses of creatine, per ESPN.

"I'd never taken it before [he got to college]," Peterson said of the popular supplement which helps to increase muscle strength, power and growth. "But after the season I took two weeks off and they did tests which showed my baseline level was already high. So, they said when I dosed [a process of increasing a dose over time to create maximum benefit at the beginning of taking a supplement], it must've made the levels unsafe."

Cramping issues had a significant impact on Peterson’s season, and were often the reason he played fewer than 30 minutes in games as a freshman. But his scariest injury scare came before the college-basketball season even began. During the team’s annual boot camp last September, Peterson was taken to the hospital after experiencing a full-body cramp.

He recounted that traumatic experience to ESPN, saying he thought he “was going to die on the training table that day.”