SAN DIEGO \u2014 Church Bells arrived at the perfect time.<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling, the Idaho State transfer in the midst of a massive shooting slump, sent St. John\u2019s to the Sweet 16 with a buzzer-beating, right-handed layup at the horn after the Johnnies had blown a 14-point lead. <\/p>\n
Darling strutted after it dropped and was immediately mobbed by his teammates after clinching this dramatic 67-65, second-round victory over Kansas at Viejas Arena.<\/p>\n
Darryn Peterson had pulled the Jayhawks even with 14.1 seconds left, and they were able to use four fouls to stall St. John\u2019s because it was under the limit. <\/p>\n
With 3.8 seconds left, St. John\u2019s inbounded the ball to Darling, and he drove in for the game-winning basket. They were his only points of the game.<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling drives to the basket for the game-winning shot during the St. John\u2019s win over Kansas on March 21. Getty Images<\/p>\n
In mid-February, after Darling hit a game-winning 3-pointer at Xavier, Pitino joked that he had \u201cballs the size of church bells.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boy, was he right.<\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s will meet Duke in the Sweet 16 on Friday in Washington, D.C., its first trip to that round since 1999.<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling celebrates after hitting the game-winning basket March 22. Charles Wenzelberg<\/p>\n
Zuby Ejiofor led St. John\u2019s with 18 points, nine rebounds and four assists, and Bryce Hopkins also had 18 points. <\/p>\n
Ian Jackson had 10 off the bench. <\/p>\n
Peterson scored 21 for Kansas. <\/p>\n
The Red Storm have won 21 of their past 22 games.<\/p>\n
For the first time in five games, St. John\u2019s didn\u2019t start on a big run. <\/p>\n
Dylan Darling celebrates after hitting the game-winning shot March 22. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
The Red Storm reeled off an 11-0 run to take an early eight-point advantage. <\/p>\n
They made three of their first four 3-point attempts, but then went ice-cold.<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling is pictured during the St. John\u2019s game March 21. Getty Images<\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s went 5:45 without a point, and Kansas tied the game on the strength of a 9-0 burst. <\/p>\n
Hopkins ended the drought with a 3-pointer that hit off the back rim and fell through. <\/p>\n
Joson Sanon and Ruben Prey added 3s to help the Red Storm take an eight-point lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Against bigger Kansas, St. John\u2019s let it fly from deep, making 7 of 23 in the opening half. <\/p>\n They average 21 per game this season. <\/p>\n A major factor in the opening half was Bidunga being limited to 12 minutes due to two early fouls. <\/p>\n Zuby Ejiofor dunks the ball during the St. John\u2019s game against Kansas on March 22. Charles Wenzelberg<\/p>\n Defense carried the Johnnies over the first 20 minutes. <\/p>\n They held Kansas to 34.5 percent shooting and forced nine turnovers, which led to 12 points.<\/p>\n Peterson hit his first two 3-point attempts but scored only nine points in the first half on 2-for-6 shooting.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John’s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n St. John\u2019s methodically pushed the lead to 10 by the under-12 timeout as it continued to handcuff Kansas.<\/p>\n The Jayhawks had as many turnovers (four) as made field goals over the first 8:21 of the second half.<\/p>\n When Mitchell scored on back-to-back possessions, St. John\u2019s lead had ballooned to 14. <\/p>\n Only 8:51 remained between the Johnnies and a Sweet 16 berth. <\/p>\n They didn\u2019t know at the time how dramatic those final minutes would be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 Church Bells arrived at the perfect time. Dylan Darling, the Idaho State transfer in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":674878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2076,8797,40085,275349,11009,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,30692,62,1378,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,51599],"class_list":["post-674877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-college-basketball","tag-kansas-jayhawks","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-2026","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-rick-pitino","tag-sports","tag-st-johns-red-storm","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zuby-ejiofor"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116275740934979673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}