LAWRENCE, Kan. — Fewer than 30 minutes until tipoff Monday at Allen Fieldhouse, the night was primed for about as good as it gets in regular-season college basketball: A national TV audience awaited, and 32 NBA scouts from 22 teams were in the stands at the loudest and most captivating venue in the land.

All in zealous anticipation of surging ninth-ranked Kansas and superstar freshman Darryn Peterson playing host to No. 1 and undefeated Arizona with KU seeking to achieve something it somehow never had done in the previous 1,001 games here: beat a top-ranked opponent.

But — stop us if you’ve heard this one — Peterson became a late scratch because of a health-related issue. In this case, what was described as flu-like symptoms kept him out for the 11th time in 24 games.

With that, poof, all the anticipation seemed destined to be for naught. The game suddenly loomed as an anticlimactic dud ... and yet another reminder of how precarious this team’s trajectory is because of the curious fickleness of Peterson’s health.

As if to punctuate the point, Arizona stormed to a quick 6-0 lead that compelled disgusted coach Bill Self to call a timeout only 1 minute, 35 seconds into the game. Even as KU and its gasping short rotation still was hovering in Arizona’s orbit until early in the second half, it felt like the bottom could drop out at any moment — especially when the Wildcats opened up a 55-44 lead.

What unfolded from there, though, was a more stirring and revealing tale than anything that could have unfolded with Peterson playing.

It wasn’t just that Kansas rallied to beat Arizona, 82-78, to win its eighth straight game and fourth of those over a ranked team and doing the night justice after all: “It was probably as good a game as college basketball has had (so far this season),” Self said.

It wasn’t even just the grit and guts and grinding it took to do it with essentially a six-man rotation, giving the sort of effort that left Self unusually emotional after the game as he celebrated with fans and even … embraced players.

“I mean, that was strange,” forward Flory Bidunga said, smiling and adding, “I’m like, ‘You giving hugs now, Coach?’ ”

The real takeaway was a rewriting of the once-prevailing narrative: that these Jayhawks (19-5, 9-2 Big 12) can only go as far as Peterson will take them.

And yes, of course, they’re better with Peterson … though it’s an open question how this ever-present sense of uncertainty about his status is playing behind the scenes.

But Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd cut to the most salient point of the night as he was asked about Peterson’s absence.

“Guys, Kansas is a hell of a team. Let’s not make this about Darryn Peterson,” he said. “He didn’t play because he was sick. They beat the No. 1 team in the country at home tonight. They did a hell of a job, and their coach did a hell of a job.

“That should be the story.”

One that at least in theory should reverberate going forward even as it echoes from a few weeks back: a 61-56 home loss to then-No. 5 Connecticut, the last game he had missed against a ranked foe.

Kansas had a chance to tie that game in the final 30 seconds, but it also lost for the third time in four games against ranked teams and sure appeared vulnerable, or at least incomplete, without Peterson.

This game showed how far they’ve come since then both with and without Peterson, whom Kansas didn’t know wasn’t playing until just a few minutes before game time, Self said.

A team too emotionally dependent on one player might have flinched from that development. Or just been flat because of it.

But not a team that’s growing, trusts its coach and is trusted by him.

While Self joked that his five-minute pregame talk was what got them galvanized after learning Peterson would sit, he more seriously said the guys were “ready to play regardless” of what had happened.

By now, part of that mentality has to be because they simply can never really know if Peterson will play. Maybe a bigger part, though, is that they have come into their own in a deeper way.

Or at least they’ve bought into what’s needed, including a certain overall relentlessness and defensive mindset that Self’s best teams have been known for.

In this case, Kansas held Arizona 11 points below its average and Melvin Council and Bidunga led the team with 23 points each as the Jayhawks won for the first time in their six games at Allen against top-ranked teams.

And never mind that Council attempted 25 field goals and made only six of them. It was going at it the way he did that Self loved and that epitomized what he sought in Peterson’s absence.

“We have actually been more aggressive individually a lot of times when (Peterson) was not in the game,” Self said. “Now, we’re not as good. But we’re more aggressive individually.”

Best of all, he said, was “the way it went down.”

“The key to winning games isn’t always playing better than your opponent,” he said, smiling. “It’s making sure your opponent doesn’t play as good as you.

“And we were able to do that.”

Pulling this off without Peterson, Self said, should give KU players more confidence. Then again, he hasn’t figured that’s been lacking among them the last few weeks.

So could be that he really meant it gave him more confidence — which might help explain how he got caught up in more public celebration than he’d normally allow himself.

“I never do that,” he said. “I’m never like that.”

Then again, he seldom has had a win quite like this one — both in itself and what it suggests.

“When you get to early February … the great teams are operating pretty close to their ceiling,” he said. “I don’t know what our ceiling is, (but) I know that we’re not close to it yet. …

“I think that we’ve got another big step that we can take, and it’s exciting to know that I believe our best ball can still be well ahead of us.”

With or without Peterson.

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