Central Valley grad Dylan Darling hits game-winning layup, sends St. John’s to Sweet 16

St. John’s is finally headed back to the Sweet 16, thanks to Central Valley’s Dylan Darling.

Darling, a junior guard for the Red Storm, converted a difficult, driving layup as time expired, lifting fifth-seeded St. John’s to a 67-65 win over No. 4 seed Kansas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday at Viejas Arena in San Diego.

The former Greater Spokane League MVP hadn’t scored before his game-winning bucket. Darling took the ball up the floor with seconds remaining, saw a lane, got an angle on his defender and darted into the paint, putting up a contested layup – almost a running hookshot – with his right hand.

The ball bounced off the backboard and through the net as the buzzer sounded. Darling put his hands up and gestured to the crowd before his teammates mobbed him to celebrate St. John’s first Sweet 16 appearance since 1999.

“Four seconds left, didn’t have time for much,” Darling told TNT reporter Lauren Shehadi after the game as his Red Storm teammates continued to embrace him. “Called on somebody to set me a screen and I went to the rim.”

Darling added when asked what legendary St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said to him before the final possession: “Yelling at me, per usual. Telling me to do something. It was ugly, but we got it done.”

Darling finished with two points on 1 of 5 shooting (0 of 4 from 3-point range). He chipped in four assists, two steals and a rebound in 18 minutes.

During a postgame news conference, Darling said Pitino had another play drawn up, but there wouldn’t be enough time to run it, so Darling “threw the suggestion out, and I don’t think coach really had a choice at that point in time, so we went with it.

“I probably don’t deserve this,” Darling added. “I was pretty bad all night long, but my teammates held it down tonight.”

The left-handed Darling hadn’t made a layup with his right hand this season, according to a post on X from CelticsBlog.com writer Azad Rosay. While breaking down the game-winner during his postgame comments, Pitino said that factored into the play’s success.

“He’s extremely fast. They probably were looking for him to go left. He went right,” Pitino said. “It was the only play we could run, or you could try to throw it into the high-post area, let (star post Zuby Ejiofor) go. But as soon as (an assistant) said to me to run (the play), I knew he could get to the rim. He hadn’t done a damn good thing the whole night, so I knew he was going to do it.”

St. John’s (30-6) will meet No. 1 seed Duke (34-2) on Friday in the Sweet 16 at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

Before etching his name into St. John’s lore on Sunday, Darling produced six points (3 of 10 shooting), five rebounds and five assists during the Red Storm’s 79-53 first-round win over No. 12 seed Northern Iowa on Friday. Darling started both games.

The 6-foot-1 junior began his collegiate career in 2022-23 at Washington State after claiming Class 4A Player of the Year honors as a senior at Central Valley High. Darling spent two years in Pullman, then transferred to Idaho State, where he earned Big Sky MVP last season before joining a national contender out of the powerhouse Big East Conference.