March Madness: St. John's success raises temperature of Storm-mania to fever pitch

A kind of chaotic delirium enveloped Dylan Darling.

The redshirt junior guard was swallowed by giddy teammates a second or so after his buzzer-beating driving layup gave fifth-seeded St. John’s a 67-65 win over fourth-seeded Kansas on Sunday and extended the Red Storm’s season at least one more game.

At the same time, 2,780 miles northeast of Viejas Arena in San Diego, California, in a dorm room on the St. John’s campus, pandemonium reigned.

For the exact same reason.

“All my friends jumped up and started jumping around,” said Leonora Augusta, a student from Hauppauge. “They were very excited. Very into basketball.”

A day after Darling forever etched his name into St. John’s basketball lore, the overriding emotions of students whom Newsday spoke with were excitement and anticipation after the Red Storm advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999.

And the possibility that, with two more wins, the program will reach the Final Four for the first time since the fabled 1984-85 team lost to Georgetown, 77-59, in the national semifinals.

Call it the audacity of hope. A boldness to dream unabashedly.

“It’s pretty cool to be back and I think it means a lot to the [St. John’s] community,” said Harrison Thaw, a freshman from Forest Hills, Queens. “[The team has] a lot of high expectations. Last year, I think they lost in the round of 32 [to Arkansas, 75-66], so I think for them to bounce back with a completely new team and pretty much dominate this year, it’d be really big for the city and the school.”

Despite entering the 2025-26 season as the ninth-winningest program in NCAA history (1,973-1,103, .641 winning percentage), St. John’s has never won a national championship. It has reached the national championship game only once, losing to Kansas, 80-63, in 1952.

As Augusta acknowledged while classmates walked by wearing St. John’s caps and Red Storm hoodies, there is an opportunity for the current iteration to make more history.

But to do so, they will have to upset No. 1 overall seed Duke on Friday night at Capital One Arena in Washington, then beat second-seeded UConn or third-seeded Michigan State on Sunday to emerge from the East Regional.

“We [as classmates and friends] have talked about it,” Augusta said.

“I’m scared for the Duke game. I feel like that one’s going to be a little too close. But we have definitely talked about it.

“It’s exciting, you know? I think we may have a chance to beat Duke. We’ve beaten UConn before. So that’s going to be a close game. But it’s definitely exciting. We’ve definitely talked about it.”

It was not all that long ago that the program was lost in the college basketball wilderness, struggling to gain its share of attention in the greater New York City-Long Island sporting landscape.

Then St. John’s hired Rick Pitino on March 20, 2023, to revive the program. One thousand and ninety-nine days later, to hear Dylan Gunning tell it, there is both growing support and new eyes on the school.

“It is definitely historic for them. A lot of people put in support for the team and it’s been probably the biggest thing about this school in the past couple years,” said Gunning, a student from Glendale, Queens.

“Pitino, because he’s a historic coach, probably the best in [college basketball] right now, puts a lot of eyes on St. John’s. And they show a team that has grit. They’re not great at shooting and stuff like that but they win rebounds and they play intense. People like that.”

Or, as Danny Diamancakos, a freshman from Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, put it: “Everybody came [here] this morning pretty energized . . . Everyone seems to be in a pretty good mood. That St. John’s spirit.”