He\u2019s gonna be a beast next year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nQ: You like distributing the ball.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I just like winning. Whatever it takes to win, especially this time of year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Which nickname do you like better: Big Bells or Dilly Buckets?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: (Laugh). Probably Dilly Buckets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling #0 steals the ball from Seton Hall Pirates guard Adam Clark #0 and scores during the second half as St. John\u2019s Red Storm defeats Seton Hall Pirates 65-60 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, New York. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
Q: Why?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Just \u2019cause I\u2019ve had that the longest. I\u2019m not too sure about Big Bells (laugh). I guess my grandma, she doesn\u2019t like people talking about my (laugh) bells like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: But that\u2019s a compliment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I think it just makes her a little uncomfortable. She said that she has church bells hanging up on her wall back at home, she said she had to take those down (laugh).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What enables you to be clutch?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: That\u2019s a good question. I honestly can\u2019t put my fingers on it. I just think I\u2019ve been in those situations before. I just feel like in those big moments, that\u2019s kind of when your work comes in, like all the work that you put in leading up to it kind of comes to show in those big moments. I just feel like I trust my instincts and I just trust my work, and sometimes those big plays happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: You play better mad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: That\u2019s true. I\u2019m not sure why that is, honestly, but it is true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What gets you mad?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Really anything can tick me off. Maybe it\u2019s the other team \u2026 maybe I get frustrated for some reason, or maybe it\u2019s an opposing player talking trash or something like that. I don\u2019t know, those things just normally seem to get me to tick and play better. I\u2019m not sure why.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Does the opposing crowd jeering you make you mad?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: They don\u2019t make me mad, I would say I do probably enjoy playing road games more than home games. I don\u2019t know why but I like the feeling of going into somebody else\u2019s place and kind of \u2026 taking their stuff (laugh).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: You\u2019ve been described as a mini-Cam Skattebo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: (Laugh) I think it\u2019s funny. I think that\u2019s a fair comparison. \u2026 I think we just both play hard, both gritty dudes. Maybe don\u2019t look the part, but I guess have a lot of heart to make up for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Don\u2019t look the part in what way?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I mean, I\u2019m a 6-foot white boy playing in the Big East, playing at St. John\u2019s. I\u2019m not overly athletic, I\u2019m not overly strong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Q: How would you describe your mentality on the court?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I have to be a pest. I have to bother people. Everything that I lack in size and everything, I just know I gotta make up for in other ways. I think playing hard is kind of a skill. I just try to play harder than everybody. I try to be the hardest-playing dude out there. If there\u2019s somebody out there playing harder than me, I try to match or even exceed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: You\u2019ll be playing in March Madness for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I\u2019m super excited. Grew up watching it as a kid. I think it\u2019s the greatest sporting event there is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: You had a hoop in your living room?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: It was a 10-foot hoop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: How much of a help was that?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: A lot (laugh). A lot. I used to be on that thing all day long.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Did you do any damage in the house?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I did. Our TV color couldn\u2019t go on just from the basketball hitting it all the time (laugh). A lot of plates, our kitchen was not too far, basketball\u2019s bouncing, plates, glasses, you name it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Why did your mother put up with that?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: She didn\u2019t. That was more my father. My parents got divorced, so I should say after the divorce is when the basketball hoop in the living room got to stick. \u2019Cause when my mom was still in the house, the basketball hoop was out in the driveway (laugh). I asked him to put the hoop in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling during his time wit Idaho State. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Q: Did you play 1-on-1 with him?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: All the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What was that like?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: It was good. We had a lot of battles growing up (laugh). We still joke about it to this day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: How bad was your back injury physically and emotionally your sophomore year at Washington State?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Physically, I would say I was only able to get about to 60 percent. I was only able to move at like 60 percent speed. And I would say it was probably a lot harder mentally, just being away from the game. You kind of take it for granted until it gets taken from you, so sitting out the whole year was probably harder on me mentally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Were you concerned about your basketball future?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: For the injury-wise, no, just because the doctor had told me with PT [physical therapy] and everything, everything was gonna be alright in the long run. I wasn\u2019t sure what I wanted to do with basketball after my sophomore year just \u2019cause I felt like my love for the game was kind of fading a little bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Was that the biggest adversity you had to overcome?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I would just say probably my whole Washington State experience. My freshman year wasn\u2019t good at all. I had a lot of bad habits that I needed to break. I wasn\u2019t living right, probably. I kind of went into Washington State thinking that I was pretty good from high school. I wasn\u2019t carrying myself how I should have. I wasn\u2019t locked in like I should have been, like I guess a Division I athlete should be, on the court, off the court, academically, really in any way. Pullman wasn\u2019t a great place for me, then my sophomore year the back happened, basketball got taken away. I was just kind of in a bad spot physically and mentally. I didn\u2019t know what I wanted to do after my coach left for Stanford. I wasn\u2019t able to stay at Washington State with the new coaching staff coming in. It was really just Idaho State for me. It was the biggest blessing I could have ever got.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling during his time with Washingon State. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Q: You broke your hand twice playing football.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: My eighth grade year going into high school I was playing football, ended up missing basketball season. I think it was like the day or two before I was supposed to get one of the casts off I broke the other one. I honestly don\u2019t remember much \u2014 I do remember being in two casts at the same time, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: You won\u2019t have surgery on your left pinky finger?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: My pinky finger is pretty cooked. Basically, it happened last year at Idaho State. I dislocated it the very first game of the year. \u2026 I went in at the very end of the year to go kind of get it checked out, and they had said I broke it. I just tape it every day so it doesn\u2019t go out of place. I guess when I broke it, it was probably late January or early February, and they were saying that was a break and that it actually healed decently. If I wanted surgery I would have to be out for three months or I could kind of just live with it like this and tape it. I was kind of, \u201cI\u2019ll just go with a crooked pinky.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Did Coach P ask about it when you met him for the first time?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: No. I don\u2019t even think Coach P knows.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Even now?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: No.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Does it hinder you in any way?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I can\u2019t bend it very much. But I can do everything with it, there\u2019s not much pain. If I didn\u2019t have this tape on, I wouldn\u2019t be able to play without it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling #0 of the St. John\u2019s Red Storm reacts on the court during the first half when the St. John\u2019s Red Storm played the Seton Hall Pirates Friday, March 6, 2026 at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Q: Your mother told you a story about your T-ball the other day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: My dad [James Darling] played in the NFL and I guess when I was young I would go to those games, and she was telling me a story about how when she came to the game the other day, you know, the starting intros and everything, the fire flashing, everything, she was telling me that I was very upset that my T-ball game didn\u2019t have the intros with the fire going. So I guess it was kind of funny in a full-circle moment, and now she\u2019s coming to my games and there\u2019s fire and everything going (laugh).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Who were your favorite players growing up?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: LeBron [James] and Kyrie [Irving] were always two that I loved watching. \u2026 Kevin Durant \u2026 Carmelo [Anthony].\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Describe your 58-point game against North Central [Wash.] HS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: It was funny, I got the COVID shot the day before that game, and my shoulder \u2014 I got it in my right shoulder \u2019cause I\u2019m a lefty \u2014 but my shoulder was ***** killing ***** me the whole day. I even remember telling my coach, I was like, \u201cCoach, my shoulder is ***** killing ***** me like right before tipoff and then basically that happened, so \u2026 got a lot of buckets (laugh).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What is your favorite thing about New York?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I would say the energy \u2026 never being bored. I like how you can go downtown and there\u2019s people in suits, there\u2019s homeless people banging on drums, there\u2019s people selling food all on the same block, and everybody\u2019s just kind of minding their own business and going about their day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling #0 steals the ball from Seton Hall Pirates guard Adam Clark #0 and scores during the second half as St. John\u2019s Red Storm defeats Seton Hall Pirates 65-60 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, New York. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
Q: Three dinner guests?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: LeBron, Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Hart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Favorite movie?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: \u201cThe Pursuit of Happyness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Favorite actor?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Denzel Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Favorite actress?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Megan Fox.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Favorite entertainer?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Drake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Favorite meal?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Chicken alfredo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Why do you wear No. 0?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I would have been No. 1 but Dillon Mitchell beat me to it. So 1, 2, 3 were all taken, so I settled for 0.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What drives you?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: My support system. I have one of the best support systems in the world in my parents, in my family, my friends. Them cheering me on from when I was young all the way up until high school, all the way up into me not playing at Washington State, to be my biggest fans at Idaho State, to them being able to watch me kind of on this stage, kind of just gives me life \u2026 and just them never wavering and never batting an eye, just being my biggest fans, it kind of just makes me work that much harder and try to be the best for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What would be your dream March?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: My dream March would, of course, be going all the way or making a deep run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What is your message to St. John\u2019s fans?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Thank you for all the support they\u2019ve given us this year, from filling up Carnesecca [Arena] to filling up the [Garden], to just showing love wherever we\u2019re at and what we\u2019re doing. \u2026 We\u2019re gonna die trying to make this run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. John\u2019s junior guard Dylan Darling takes a shot at some March Madness Q&A with Post columnist Steve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3361,30243,9,11,10,49,51,50,20294,319,3363,3602],"class_list":["post-157758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-college-basketball","tag-dylan-darling","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-serbys-qa","tag-sports","tag-st-johns-red-storm","tag-uconn-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}