St. John's guard Dylan Darling hits buzzer-beater against Kansas to get Red Storm into Sweet 16

Nick Bromberg Mon, March 23, 2026 at 12:20 AM UTC

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Dylan Darling put St. John’s in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999.

Darling made a buzzer-beating layup to give the No. 5 Red Storm a 67-65 win over No. 4 Kansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday. Darling’s layup came off an inbounds play following Kansas’ four purposeful fouls in an effort to prevent the Red Storm from winning the game after the Jayhawks had tied it.

Kansas tied the game with 13 seconds to go on two free throws by star freshman Darryn Peterson. As Peterson was at the line, Kansas had committed just two fouls all half. That meant the Jayhawks had the opportunity to foul St. John’s four times without putting the Red Storm at the line unless they were shooting fouls.

The scenario for the intentional foul strategy was obvious. Yet the Jayhawks failed to execute it well.

Kansas used two fouls in two seconds. By the time Kansas committed its third foul, there were roughly six seconds on the clock. And when the Jayhawks committed their sixth foul — a seventh foul would have put a St. John’s player at the line — there was still 3.9 seconds to go. And, as it turns out, that was plenty of time for Darling to get to the lane for the game-winner.

And that basket was Darling’s first points of the game. According to Sports Reference’s database, he’s the only player in NCAA tournament history to score his first points of the game on a buzzer-beater.

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Darling had missed his first four shots before the layup and all of them were 3-pointers.

The basket also blunted what would have been one of the greatest comebacks in Kansas basketball history. The Jayhawks trailed by 14 points in the second half but tied the game on Peterson’s free throws. Kansas’ only lead of the game came with 18:09 remaining in the first half.

That near-comeback got an assist from the officials, too. With less than three minutes to go, St. John’s was called for an over-and-back violation after Kansas’ Melvin Council Jr. clearly tipped away a handoff above the 3-point line. Since Council touched the ball, St. John’s should have been able to keep the ball after retaining possession behind the mid-court line.

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But St. John’s coach Rick Pitino couldn’t challenge the call after burning his only challenge early in the second half on an obvious out-of-bounds call that went against the Red Storm.

St. John’s shot just 36%

The Red Storm’s offense did just enough to get the win. Just barely enough.

St. John’s was just 25-of-69 from the floor and shot 35 3-point attempts. Twenty-three of those came in the first half — a record for most 3-pointers in a half by a Red Storm team coached by Pitino.

The Red Storm are not a team that shoots a lot of threes. They averaged 21 3-point attempts per game before Sunday, ranking 262nd out of 365 Division I teams. And they shoot just 33% on those attempts. Sunday, St. John’s made 11 3-pointers.

Big East player of the year Zuby Ejiofor had 18 points and nine rebounds, while Bryce Hopkins had 18 points and seven rebounds. Hopkins, a transfer from Providence, made six of St. John’s 3-pointers.

Is Darryn Peterson off to the NBA?

The second-round loss seemingly ends Peterson’s tumultuous college career. The potential No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft led all scorers with 21 points and was 5-of-15 from the field and 8-of-10 from the free-throw line.

Peterson missed time throughout the season because of cramps, illness and an ankle injury. The extent of his cramping issues weren’t known until late in the season when he revealed he had suffered a traumatic full-body cramp in the fall. Peterson appeared in 23 of Kansas’ 35 games, but played fewer than 25 minutes in five of those contests.

He led the Jayhawks with over 20 points per game, but there were stretches — both on Sunday and on Friday — where he would disappear from the offense. As Cal Baptist made a frantic comeback attempt late in KU’s first-round win, Peterson didn’t take a shot in the final four minutes of the game.

However, Peterson is not the reason the Jayhawks are out of the NCAA tournament and not the sole reason why KU failed to win the Big 12 or get a top-three seed in the NCAA tournament. Before Kohl Rosario hit a 3-pointer with 7:52 to go against the Red Storm, no KU player other than Peterson had made a shot from behind the arc all tournament.

If and when Peterson declares for the draft, he’ll likely be competing with Duke’s Cameron Boozer and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa to be the No. 1 overall pick. Duke is still alive in the NCAA tournament after beating TCU in the second round on Saturday, while Dybantsa’s Cougars lost to Texas in the first round on Thursday.

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Source: “AOL Sports”