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California Baptist forces Kansas to hold on late in NCAA Tournament opener

March 21, 2026

SAN DIEGO — The California Baptist University men’s basketball team was playing mostly for pride when the second half of Friday’s game started.

But there were moments late in the NCAA Tournament opener when the victory meter made a massive move from impossible to probable.

CBU – playing in the first NCAA (Division I) Tournament game in program history – put a scare into traditional power Kansas and made the Jayhawks sweat things out.

Dominique Daniels Jr. scored 20 of his team-high 25 points after halftime to lead a furious charge by the 13th-seeded Lancers. In the end, however, a 26-point deficit and the play of Kansas freshman sensation Darryn Peterson were an unbeatable combination, as the fourth-seeded Jayhawks escaped with a 68-60 win in an East Regional first-round game at Viejas Arena.

“Obviously, we would have loved to play better in the first half,” Lancers coach Rick Croy said. “But for these guys, again, to show what they’re all about, it was pretty amazing.”

California Baptist (25-9) was making its March Madness debut after winning the Western Athletic Conference Tournament championship. And the Lancers were double-digit underdogs against tournament mainstay Kansas (24-10).

And things were looking pretty bleak for the Lancers when they trailed by 20 points at halftime and by 26 points just 3½ minutes into the second half.

And then something nearly remarkable happened. The offensive woes CBU had experienced for much of the game suddenly disappeared. Shots began to fall, and the deficit kept shrinking.

“It was a combination of factors,” Croy said of the comeback. “Our defense was really solid and we were making things tough on them. And then our shot-making. We started making some shots and Lancer Nation started to come alive.”

A sizable crowd, led by the CBU Crazies student section, made the trip down to San Diego for the program’s historic moment. As the Lancers inched closer in the final minutes, the decibel level in the arena continued to grow.

“They gave us energy when we scored,” senior guard Martel Williams said of the CBU fan base. “We hear that and feed off that energy. We couldn’t have done that without you guys.”

Daniels made only 1 of 10 shots during the first half and went into the locker room with only five points. But the senior point guard provided some late magic, similar to the kind he summoned during the closing moments of the WAC Tournament final.

Daniels knocked down four 3-pointers in the second half and also was able to get to the rim for several additional baskets or trips to the free-throw line.

“I just doubled down on who I am and who God made me to be,” said Daniels, who finished the season with a program-record 766 points.

Kansas went cold for most of the last six minutes and the Lancers kept gaining ground with an 18-2 run.

Daniels’ final 3-pointer of the night cut the deficit to 66-56 with 2:44 to play, and he added two free throws 30 seconds later. Then Williams sliced through the lane for a layup that got the Lancers within 66-60 with 1:16 remaining.

CBU couldn’t get any closer, however. Daniels missed a mid-range jumper with 22 seconds left, and Tre White threw down an emphatic alley-oop with 13 seconds left to put Kansas up by eight and essentially seal the victory.

“That was a beautiful storm, and we were trying to ride it and hopefully get it to one possession,” Croy said. “I kept looking at the clock, asking ‘Can we get it there?’

“But the clocked kept moving and we just essentially ran out of time.”

Peterson overcame a slow start and finished with a game-high 28 points to lead the way for the Jayhawks, who will square off against fifth-seeded St. John’s – a 79-53 winner against 12th-seeded Northern Iowa – on Sunday. White had 12 points and was the only other double-digit scorer for Kansas.

Williams finished with 15 points for the Lancers.

The game took on a defensive tone from the opening whistle. Kansas missed its first five shots from the field and was just 2 for 15 at one point after missing seven straight. California Baptist started the game 0 for 4 with four turnovers.

Daniels fittingly scored CBU’s first point in an NCAA Division I Tournament game when he sank a free throw about 2½ minutes into the game. Thomas Ndong made the first shot from the field for the Lancers with 16:41 left in the first half.

Peterson started ice cold, missing his first six attempts from the field. Peterson eventually settled into the game and made six of his final eight shots of the half to go into the locker room with 15 points at intermission.

The shots might not have been falling for Kansas early, but the Jayhawks managed to attack the basket and get to the free-throw line on several occasions. Kansas shot 9 for 10 from the foul line in the first half, including a 6-of-6 effort from White.

CBU’s offensive futility throughout the opening 12 minutes (eight points) had the Lancers teetering on the brink of a dubious postseason record. The fewest points scored by a team in the first half of an NCAA Tournament game is 11 (Colorado State vs. Texas in 2024).

But the Lancers broke out of the funk and pieced together their best stretch of the first half. Williams scored on a pair of driving layups to spark an 8-2 run that trimmed the deficit to 11 points and forced Kansas coach Bill Self to call a timeout.

But Peterson had the final answers of the first half, as the projected NBA Draft lottery pick scored the final seven points to send the Jayhawks to the locker room with a 38-18 advantage.

Orange County Register

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California Baptist forces Kansas to hold on late in NCAA Tournament opener

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