914 career wins for Rick Pitino. 855 for Bill Self.
The coaches of St. John’s and Kansas have already etched their names into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and their prominent presences on campuses across the country have cemented their status as legends of college hoops for decades.
On Sunday, the two squared off in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, bringing fans one of the most epic games March Madness has seen thus far.
St. John’s graduate Bryce Hopkins and Kansas’ potential number one overall selection in the upcoming NBA Draft Darryn Peterson caught fire immediately, as the counterparts drained two threes each in the opening two minutes.
After Peterson’s hot start, the Jayhawks ran ice cold for the next eight minutes, not connecting on another field goal until the 10:19 mark when sophomore Elmarko Jackson finally slammed down a fastbreak dunk, becoming the first Jayhawk aside from Peterson to log a successful field goal.
St. John’s did not exactly capitalize on the Kansas dry spell, shooting a mere 6/23 through the first twelve minutes and only totaling 16 points before Pitino called timeout due to Melvin Council cutting the deficit to four on yet another breakaway.
Self credited backup center Paul Mbiya following the near scare against Cal Baptist, crediting the freshman’s disruptive large frame in unusually extended minutes off the bench.
“Darryn was probably our best player tonight. But Paul was probably our second-best player tonight,” Self said. “I thought he was great.”
Self’s confidence proved to fuel the freshman once again, as he tallied six rebounds to go along with three points in a season high twelve first half minutes.
Kansas took advantage of the poor shooting from the Red Storm, hovering close until St. John’s big man Ruben Prey and sophomore Joson Sanon knocked down back-to-back threes to push the lead back to seven.
After Zuby Ejiofor began to get active on the offensive glass, St. John’s jogged to the locker room with a 34-26 lead despite shooting only 29% as a team.
The patented Pitino press forced nine first half Jayhawk turnovers.
The second half opened with a flurry, as both teams shot 50% through the first six minutes, but consecutive three pointers from sophomore Ian Jackson and Hopkins saw the Red Storm claim their first double-digit lead of the night, 47-37, forcing a furious Self to call a timeout.
Hopkins’ triple marked St. John’s 10th of the day with 13:49 left, already three above their season average of seven, shooting ten more attempts than they normally do.
Pitino noted that it was absolutely part of the strategy to shoot a barrage of outside shots.
“I was imploring my guys the entire game — this is going to sound strange — I said ‘you have to keep shooting the 3,’” Pitino said. “When you look at it and you break it down, it’s 33 points to 15. And the 3-point line, which hasn’t been in our favor most of the year, had to win it for us tonight because our offense going to the basket was not bringing a lot of fruit for our labor.”
The next three minutes saw both sides fail to connect on a field goal until Jackson’s acrobatic layup gave the Red Storm their largest lead of the night, 50-38.
After forcing a 15th Jayhawk turnover, Mitchell’s floater in the lane pushed the lead to 14 as Self elected to use yet another timeout.
Council Jr. then buried his first three of the tournament, and Peterson attacked the lane hard to earn two free throws before doing the exact same thing to earn a three point play.
In the blink of an eye, the Red Storm lead dwindled down to five, 58-53, forcing Pitino to call a timeout with just over five minutes remaining.
The Jayhawk faithful rose to their feet during the break before Ejiofor silenced them with back-to-back buckets in the paint as the lead extended back to nine.
Kansas countered with two layups of their own from Council Jr. and White III as the lead receded back to five.
After an over-and-back violation on St. John’s, Jayhawk freshman Kohl Rosario, getting his first action of the tournament, skied high over the St. John’s big men to snag a crucial rebound and putback.
Down to three.
An authoritative Bidunga block set up a Peterson transition three that rimmed in-and-out, but Bidunga ran a full 94 feet to crash the glass and tap it back in.
62-61, 1:56 to go. Timeout, Pitino.
The brilliance of Pitino out of timeouts allowed Hopkins to flare to the wing off of a screen away from the ball, and he buried a clutch three in front of his own bench, igniting the Red Storm faithful as their school took a four point lead with 1:29 to play.
White III cleaned up his own spill on the other end, laying in a putback off of his own miss to make it 65-63 with under one minute to play.
After the biggest stop of the night, Self called his final timeout with 24.4 seconds left, and his only thought was to get the ball in the hands of the future top pick.
Peterson put his head down and drove hard to the right side, drawing contact before burying the two biggest free throws of his collegiate career to even the score at 65.
With four fouls to give, Kansas burned eleven seconds off of the clock, leaving St. John’s with 3.9 seconds and a sideline out of bounds play.
Enter: Dylan Darling.
Zero points the entire game. The smallest player on the floor at 6’1.
Darling did not care.
He collected the inbounds pass, and in a blur raced to the right side and finished with his off hand as the buzzer sounded, waving goodbye to the crowd before getting tackled by his teammates.
67-65.
Onto the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1999.
Pitino nicknamed his senior point guard “Bells” earlier in the season, referring to his clutch gene, previously stating that “[Darling’s] got balls as big as church bells.”
Pitino poked fun at Darling postgame while showing the Spokane native his deserved praise.
“This is the amazing thing, and the funniest thing I’ve ever been involved with,” Pitino said. “Bells comes up to me and says, ‘run power,’ which is a high, back-screen pick-and-roll. So I walk away and I said, ‘wait a second. He hasn’t scored a bucket and he wants to run a play for himself.’”
Even though Pitino knew how frustrated Darling had been with his play prior to the clutch dagger, he never lacked confidence in the transfer from Idaho State.
“As soon as Bells said to me ‘run power,’ I knew he could get to the rim because he hadn’t done a damn good thing the whole night, so I knew he was going to do it.”
After his first collegiate game-winner, Darling may have to get a testicular inspection at UC San Diego Health Medical Center to ensure that the size of his “church bells” will not affect his play for the rest of the tournament.
Dominique Daniels Jr. stole the hearts of the 12,000 fans in attendance in Viejas Arena on Friday night, and the generously listed 6’1” Darling wore the new theme of the first two rounds proudly on his chest:
Heart over height.
St. John’s now has a date with the devil (literally), as they are set to take on the 1-seed Duke Blue Devils in the regional semifinal on Friday.