St. John’s Red Storm Hold Off a Late Surge From Kansas Jayhawks Thanks To Heroics From Dylan Darling
March is a beautifully cruel beast. It takes your blood pressure, spikes it into the stratosphere, and leaves you either weeping on the hardwood or dog-piling your teammates in front of millions. On Sunday in San Diego, the basketball gods delivered an absolute classic, serving up a heavy dose of both heartbreak and euphoria.
For the first time since 1999, St. John’s is heading to the Sweet 16. And they did it in the most absurd, heart-stopping way imaginable: a 67-65 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks, capped off by a buzzer-beating layup from a guy who hadn’t scored a single point all night.
If you wrote this script in Hollywood, they would toss it out for being too unrealistic. But this is college basketball. Welcome to the Madness.
A Tale Of Two Halves and a Furious Kansas Comeback
For the first thirty minutes of this heavyweight bout, Rick Pitino’s squad looked like they were going to cruise. St. John’s built a comfortable 58-45 lead with just over seven minutes to play. They were suffocating the Jayhawks, forcing 16 turnovers and turning the game into an absolute rock fight.
Zuby Ejiofor, ironically a former Jayhawk, was eating his old team alive in the paint, stuffing the stat sheet with 18 points and 9 boards. Bryce Hopkins matched him stride for stride with 18 points of his own. But Bill Self’s teams don’t just roll over and book their flights home. Enter Darryn Peterson.
The Kansas freshman phenom put the team on his back, battling through a brutal shooting night to orchestrate a frantic 20-7 run. The Jayhawks chipped away at the lead, possession by agonizing possession. With 13 seconds left on the clock, Peterson calmly sank two free throws to knot the game at 65. The momentum had completely shifted. The Red Storm looked completely gassed, and the ghost of tournament collapses past seemed ready to haunt St. John’s once again.
The Foul Strategy That Went Horribly Wrong
What happened next will be dissected on sports talk radio for the rest of the year. When Peterson tied the game, Kansas had committed a grand total of two fouls in the entire second half. This meant the Jayhawks had an arsenal of fouls to give before putting St. John’s in the bonus.
The strategy was obvious: foul the Red Storm repeatedly to bleed the clock dry, disrupt any offensive flow, and force overtime. It is a brilliant tactical move when executed correctly. The problem? Kansas executed it like a guy trying to defuse a bomb while wearing oven mitts.
They burned two fouls in two seconds. Then another. But by the time the Jayhawks committed their sixth foul of the half, there were still 3.9 seconds remaining on the clock. That is an eternity in basketball time. It was just enough daylight for St. John’s to draw up one final, desperate play.
Dylan Darling Etches His Name In St. John’s Lore
Let’s talk about Dylan Darling. Before the final horn, Darling was having a night he probably wanted to forget. He had played 17 minutes, missed all four of his three-point attempts, and had a goose egg in the scoring column. But when the ball was inbounded with the season on the line, the St. John’s guard didn’t hesitate.
Darling caught the inbound pass, got downhill in an absolute blur, bypassed the Kansas defense, and flipped up a layup right as the red lights illuminated the backboard. Swish.
Bedlam ensued. The St. John’s bench erupted, sprinting onto the floor in a scene of pure, unadulterated joy. Darling, who hadn’t seen a shot go through the hoop all evening, suddenly found himself cemented in program history. According to the stat folks, he is the only player in the history of the NCAA Tournament to score his very first points of a game on a buzzer-beater. You simply cannot make that up.
Surviving and Advancing
For Kansas, it is a bitter pill to swallow. They fought back from the dead, only to watch their season end on a defensive miscalculation and a contested layup. They will be replaying those final 13 seconds in their heads all summer long.
But this moment belongs entirely to St. John’s. After 27 years of waiting, hoping, and enduring plenty of mediocre winters, the Red Storm fan base finally gets to experience the magic of the second weekend. Pitino has his squad believing they can beat anyone in the country, and frankly, after surviving a war of attrition against a blue-blood like Kansas, who is going to tell them otherwise?
Up next for St. John’s is a monumental clash with Duke in the Sweet 16. If Sunday night was any indication, you might want to call your cardiologist now and get your prescriptions filled. The Red Storm is officially back, and they are bringing the drama with them.
