St. John’s looked like they were going to comfortably head to the Sweet 16 as they had a 14 point lead with 8 minutes to play. But nothing in March is easy.

Over the next three minutes, Kohl Rosario and Melvin Counsil Jr hit three pointers and Darryl Peterson hit some free throws to cut the lead to 5 points.

The Jayhawks keep chipping away, and with 2 minutes to play, Darryn Peterson missed a three-pointer, but Flory Bidunga was there to get the offensive rebound and hit the layup to cut the lead to 1.

Desperately needing to stop the run, St. John’s got the ball into Bryce Hopkins on the wing, and he drills a three-pointer to extend the lead back to 4 points, but the Jayhawks were not done.

Tre White would cut the lead to two with a layup, and after the Red Storm drained the shot clock, Zuby Ejofor missed a three pointer to give the Jayhawks a chance to tie or take the lead.

Kansas’ Peterson drove to the basket with 13 seconds and got fouled as he tried to shoot it from the baseline. And he made both free throws to tie the game.

This led to a weird part of the game. The Jayhawks only had two fouls. So, they started to intentionally foul to not allow St. John’s to get the ball across half court. The strategy almost worked as they got the clock all the way down to 3 seconds when they ran out of fouls to give.

St. John’s got the pass into Dylan Darling at the half court circle and he starts driving hard to the basket. He gets all the way down the lane, and throws up a layup right before the buzzer goes off, and the ball hits the backboard perfectly and rolls into the basket for a 67-65 victory for St. John’s.

The Red Storm survive and advance – awaiting for them in Washington, D.C. will be #1 Duke in the Sweet 16.